


the voyagers

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Elf, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Elves, F/F, Fantasy, Fluff, Historical Fantasy, Humor, Inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, M/M, Magic, the boys are all elves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 58,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: After discovering the malevolent plans his father has for his future, elf-prince He Tian flees his homeland and embarks on an unexpected adventure. Across land and sea, he forms unexpected friendships with other travellers heading east, and uncovers more of his father's dark plans for the kingdom than he ever realised. The voyagers form unlikely bonds as they help each other on their journeys—and promise to help He Tian save his kingdom.[Request: 19 Days D&D-Inspired Fantasy Adventure.]
Relationships: He Cheng/Brother Qiu (19 Days), He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), Jian Yi/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 253





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Plumb19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plumb19/gifts).



> So many thanks to Emma [(@plumb19)](http://plumb19.tumblr.com) for requesting me to write this story - it's going to be a wonderful journey to lead you all on. If you would like to have a fic written for you, please [visit my Tumblr](http://agapaic.tumblr.com) to see how!
> 
> Please note that I have never personally played D&D and this story, largely with Emma's guidance, only loosely uses D&D lore and characterstics without heavily relying on them. You do not need to be familiar with D&D to read this fic - only to settle in and be ready for a bit of fun! I have tried to also stay true to the boys' ethnic and cultural Chinese heritage as much as possible in this fantasy world. In this story, they are elves living in a world with varied races, species and other magical creatures. It should all be self-explanatory as you read this story, but should you have any particular questions, please don't hesitate to reach out!
> 
> My thanks also go to Vivian, Asa, and Andy for providing me with some stellar feedback and proofreading. I feel so much more confident after their review, and appreciate their time so much.

It began with a conversation not meant to be heard, a door not meant to be listened at, a life not-yet-lived being decided for. We could begin there, with the sharp sting of a blood-betrayal, but this is a happy story, for the most part, so we can begin, instead, with a kiss. A warm day, spring slipping into summer. The air brushed coolly along the foothills of the mountains. He Tian’s leathers were sticking to his skin, wet with sweat and grime from training. His cheeks were gritty with dust from the training grounds, his sword strapped to his waist. 

He needed to bathe, and oil his worn muscles—he had been training since dawn—but another desire won out, as it had done for most of his young life thus far. Namely, want. Namely, something as close to love as He Tian had ever known. But for now, let’s call it love. He ambled along familiar roads that led him from the palace’s training grounds and down to the blacksmith’s shop, keeping to the cool shadows of overhanging eaves and awnings, smiling at a handful of passersby, both familiar and not. The town was quiet; there would be a market later that evening, when the pollen from the forests and wildflower fields settled in the air. For now, in the North Kingdom of Moryo, most were sleeping away the mid-afternoon heat.

He Tian’s training finished at noon. He had been awake since dawn, and the sun was now reaching its zenith. In a few months, it would be higher, his people’s green-toned skin darkening beneath it to emerald and fern; the air would grow hotter and thick with dust and only cooled with a breeze from the mountains, but for now he was grateful for spring.

Guan Shan was there when he knocked, the rap of his knuckles loud over the rhythmic clanking of a hammer on hot metal. A wall of heat prickled at his skin as Guan Shan’s mother welcomed him inside, a bell singing above the door, hot sparks flickering in the room behind her from the furnace. He Tian bowed to her, apologised for the intrusion.

‘Never an intrusion,’ said Guan Shan’s mother, eyes soft at the corners. Her hand rested briefly on his arm, a tender, motherly touch of the kind that he had missed, and then fell away. She then bowed in return, the gesture proper. ‘He’s out the back,’ she told him, fingers cupped around the side of her mouth, as if she were telling him a secret.

‘Thank you, Auntie,’ he murmured, and she stepped aside to let him pass, smiling like she was laughing at him, only silently. 

The room at the back of the shop was dark, lit only by one solitary north-facing window that was too low to receive much sunlight. Inside, the room smelled of metal and burning wood and ash; a thin black layer of the stuff coated every sparse surface. Guan Shan’s mother used to work in here, side by side with her husband, but now she stayed mostly at the front of the shop behind a small varnished table made of oak, where she interacted with customers and used the natural lighting to work on more delicate pieces of metalwork like jewellery and ornaments. Out of metal and flowers, Guan Shan’s mother had made He Tian’s mother’s funeral crown.

If Guan Shan had heard him come in, he didn’t show it. He was crouched beside the furnace on a low stool. In his hands, he worked at the long blade of a broadsword, a damp cloth wrapped around its hilt to protect Guan Shan’s hands, and He Tian admired the scene in silence. Guan Shan’s red hair was turned redder against the spitting glow of the furnace. Sometimes, He Tian feared it would catch, the long auburn length of it burnt to cinders, but he supposed he’d get used to it, after a while.

‘Is that my birthday present?’ he asked eventually.

Guan Shan, knowing he was there, didn’t jump. He settled down the hammer, tilted the blade back and forth. The metal glowed orange; this hot, it would sever He Tian in two and cauterise the wound. Satisfied with what he saw, Guan Shan lay down the sword, and twisted to look at him.

‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘It’d be a pretty expensive gift.’

He Tian lifted his chin. ‘Name your price.’

Guan Shan did, and He Tian, leaning down, was pleased to find he could pay it. The kiss was polite, chaste with newness. He Tian swallowed down the dark, salty taste of woodsmoke on Guan Shan’s lips. Years of pining, a scant month of reciprocation, and they were still testing the waters. Neither had surpassed the boundary into untethered passion, and it appeared as if both were waiting for the other to do so with a curious amount of self-consciousness.

Clearing their throats, they separated. Guan Shan was unaffected by the heat of the workshop, even in the midst of a long summer, but the pointed tips of his ears had turned a deeper shade of green. 

‘That was nice,’ he said thickly. ‘But I can’t accept it.’

Equally polite: ‘It wasn’t to your liking?’

‘It’s already been paid for. It’s for Guard Qiu.’

‘Ah,’ said He Tian. He rocked back on the heels of his boots, rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Not sure I can compete there.’

They shared a long look, and Guan Shan was the first to smile, the lift at the corners of his mouth almost begrudging. Spurred by the gesture, He Tian leaned down again—and found he was stopped by the firm placement of a hand against this chest. 

He Tian considered it with a look of surprise, and then cast his gaze back towards the front of the shop, questioning. _Your mother?_

‘She knows about us,’ said Guan Shan. ‘She thinks she’s always known.’ His words sounded unhappy, and He Tian told him this. ‘I don’t mind, it’s just—embarrassin’.’

He Tian straightened. ‘You’re embarrassed by me?’

A _tsk._ ‘Oh, yeah. The son of the emperor wants to fuck me. A real blow to my social standin’.’

‘I’d like to do more than fuck you,’ He Tian said, speaking lowly, but only a little. He didn’t particularly mind who was listening to this declaration, even if it was Guan Shan’s mother. ‘Or blow you, for that matter.’

‘Careful. Sounds like you might be developin’ feelings for me.’

‘Terrible, isn’t it.’

‘I’d bet your father might think so,’ Guan Shan said, reaching up to tap at the twisted vines of He Tian’s coronet. ‘Fallin’ for the blacksmith’s kid.’

‘We’ve known each other half our lives,’ He Tian replied, shrugging. ‘I don’t think he’d care. I’m not his heir. As far as he’s concerned, who I develop feelings for doesn’t affect the bloodline.’ 

‘Yeah, we’ll see about that.’

He Tian considered him. ‘I’ll announce it tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘You and me. At my centenary.’

‘Don’t do that.’

He Tian pulled away, smiling, feeling a slight sting. ‘You _are_ embarrassed, Little Mo. I knew it. You’re embarrassed by me. Ha!’

‘Fuck off,’ Guan Shan muttered. ‘If I’m embarrassed by anyone, it’s me.’

Not understanding, He Tian said, ‘What are you talking about? You made me this.’ He touched the sword at his hip, imbued with Guan Shan’s magic, persistently warm to the touch. It had been Guan Shan’s qualifying piece some fifteen years ago while he apprenticed, earning him the title of Royal Smith, which granted his skill recognition in both the north and south kingdoms. Now, and for a thousand years, it would sing to them both.

He Tian continued: ‘You’re the most skilled blacksmith in the kingdom–after your mother, obviously. You’re beautiful.’ He tacked on the compliment not as a half-forgotten appeal, but as if to say, _Do I even need to point out the obvious?_ Guan Shan wore the soft beauty of his mother, hardened only through masculinity and his father’s passing. His skin, smooth and forest-green; his hair, rare and flame-red, the same pigment flecked in his eyes. 

He was a thing of the same woods that their people came from, closer to nature than anything else He Tian had held and beheld in ninety-nine years. He liked to imagine sometimes that nature had procured Guan Shan just for him, and then would remember that Guan Shan was a few months older than him—already one-hundred, already an adult—and that perhaps it was the other way around.

Given a chance, He Tian would’ve plucked him from the flowerbed of the blacksmith’s shop and transplanted him into a vase in the form of the palace’s closed-off rooms, his looks unseen, his voice unheard, the sight of him saved only for He Tian. As it was, the distinct privilege of being the emperor’s son did not extend to the possession of other people, and so he had grown steadily comfortable with the truth that Guan Shan had the freedom to roam freely among others, be seen freely by others, be touched freely—if he wanted—by others.

Sometimes, He Tian couldn’t breathe fully when he looked at him. Sometimes he wanted him so obsessively it was near-painful, grew mad not with the thought that someone else could have Guan Shan, but that Guan Shan would want them to have him, too. He Tian didn’t tell anyone this—not even Guan Shan—and he was working hard at trying to make the feelings _less._

‘I don’t wanna talk about this right now,’ Guan Shan was saying. ‘Just—no announcements, alright? It’s your day.’ 

‘One of a millenia,’ He Tian agreed. ‘Do you blame me for wanting to spend each one with you?’

Another flush, and Guan Shan looked at him pointedly, refusing to acknowledge the question. ‘You fuckin’ reek,’ he said. ‘You need a bath. Why’d you bother comin’ here after training?’

‘I wanted to see you,’ said He Tian, sounding petulant. Training wasn’t _real_ ; the danger was minimal, but the spike in adrenaline while he parried with a sword, and when it was over, still made him want to fuck. Sighing, he took a step towards the front of the shop. 

‘We’ll see each other tomorrow,’ Guan Shan reminded him. A gesture to the sword. ‘I’ve gotta finish this.’

He Tian leered. ‘You want to tend to Brother Qiu’s sword more than mine?’

Quickly ducking out to the shopfront, he heard the loud clang of something being thrown and missing its target. His departing laughter rang out as clearly as the bell above the door. 

*******

He passed by his brother’s chambers before heading to his own for a bath. Despite the quietness of the town, the innards of the palace were busy like a hive, completing preparations for He Tian’s centenary tomorrow night. The smell of cooking wafted from the kitchens, and everywhere was the pungent smell of flowers plucked at the perfect stage of bloom. High elves from the South Kingdom had been summoned for their charmwork, but the rest of the night’s magic had been left entirely to the softly cupped hands of nature.

 _One hundred years old,_ He Tian thought, and then said it without speaking, just shaping his mouth around the words. A tenth of his lifetime that had been and gone, as if he’d slept through most of it and was only now waking for some new beginning. From tomorrow, there would be newer duties, heavier responsibilities. Nothing to match his brother’s, upon whose shoulders the suffocating weight of being an heir pressed down and forced him into hardness.

Still, with some resentment, He Tian sought his company and his approval, if only to be thankful that he wasn’t his brother. He Cheng’s rooms were in the east corner of the palace, where morning light would filter through the windows and bathe the dark wood furnishings in startling brightness. He Tian went there with his footsteps light, detouring only briefly to snag an apple from the kitchens, pink and mildly sweet, and inclined his head politely to the courtiers and attendants who roamed the varnished halls. 

The door to his brother’s apartment was ajar when he arrived, revealing a sparse chamber that branched off to a bedroom, private bathing room, and his dressing room, the entrance to each partition set behind huge ornate folding screens that took the strength of three servants to move. He Tian’s own room was near-identical, but had the markings of a space that was lived-in and enjoyed: large tomes along the walls, maps rolled up and peering from beneath his bed frame, a gifted assortment of teas that from an Axle diplomat on a side table, a pencilled sketch of Guan Shan kept framed and well-dusted on the dresser. In He Cheng’s rooms, cherry red columns stretched from floor to ceiling, and there was a low-set table in the middle of the room, surrounded by cushions and upon which a glass pot of tea leaves was stewing. Two cups had been set aside, left abandoned.

Beside the window that overlooked the grounds and met the sun in the morning, He Cheng and the Emperor were standing close. He Tian paused in the doorway.

‘He deserves to know,’ He Cheng was saying in a low voice. ‘It’s his life.’

‘His life is mine,’ their father replied. ‘As mine was my father’s. As yours is mine, until I’m dead. We do what is best.’

‘I wouldn’t make my son do this.’

‘Then it is a good thing you’re not emperor yet.’

He Tian reared from his father’s words, felt the sting of them even from across the room and behind a partially closed door. He Cheng, whose expression was hard as flint, did not flinch. 

_Deserves to know what?_ He Tian thought. The apple in his palm, half-eaten, felt heavy. The flesh was turning brown. 

‘Does the Drow princess know?’ He Cheng asked their father. ‘Or is this a matter of parents deciding what is best for their children?’

‘Don’t be bitter, He Cheng,’ Emperor He reprimanded. ‘It’s unsavoury. What the Drow king tells his daughter is his concern. Whether she knows now or on their wedding day—she will fall in line.’

‘They’re not soldiers,’ He Cheng said. ‘This isn’t a war, Father.’

‘Even peace is a war.’

He Tian held his breath. _Peace? Between the Drow and the North Kingdom?_ The thought had been impossible for centuries. No woodland elf alive could recall a time where the Drow had willingly crawled out from beneath the mountains and made a gesture of peace towards He Tian’s people, or vice versa. He pictured it: a Drow girl, obsidian-skinned and white-eyed, standing beside someone like him. A half-breed child. 

Revulsion stirred in his belly. Who would his father make suffer such a fate?

‘Peace,’ his brother said. ‘You want to unite with the Drow—for what reason? We’ll gain nothing from a union with them. If anything, we’ll lose the South Kingdom as an ally. They resent the Drow even more than we do.’

‘Then we’ll lose them. There are greater things to gain.’

‘Father,’ He Cheng began, almost stern, but their father held up a hand, mouth perpetually downturned at the edges. He would hear nothing more. There was no use in trying. The trait had been inherited by both sons: stubbornness, like a stallion pushed too hard in the heat and holding its ground. ‘I won’t tell him,’ said He Cheng, in a quieter voice.

The Emperor’s lip curled. ‘Don’t be a coward.’

He Cheng refused to yield. ‘If his life is yours, Father, then so is the task of telling him. I won’t be responsible for it.’

Through the gap, He Tian stared. He heard his brother’s words for what they were: an act of defiance. More than anything–more than thought of a union with the Drow–this carved out a pit in his stomach like some collapsed dwarf mine, all shrapnel and screaming, the echoing shouts of men suffocating beneath the rubble. His brother had never gone against their father’s orders, publicly or privately; that was He Tian’s unruly prerogative.

The emperor clicked his tongue, and looked with dissatisfaction through the window. ‘It doesn’t matter who tells him. He Tian will marry the girl whether he wants to or not. He has no choice.’

It was not He Tian’s insides that had collapsed on him, but the whole floor of the palace. He was at once broken and crumpled on the ground, three floors below, and rooted entirely to the spot. His vision swam. He pressed a hand to the wall beside him and heaved. 

_He Tian will marry the girl._

Him. _He_ was the Drow’s groom. He was his father’s plaything, his pawn. He Cheng’s _xiangqi_ board might have been empty, but his father had long stopped using any pieces. 

The dynamic played out before him now struck him like a punch to the face: stubbornness, a refusal to yield. He Tian sucked in a breath through his teeth. It was his birthday tomorrow, and his father was selling him off as if the day were a cattle market. He couldn’t—he _wouldn’t._ He was a day from achieving majority. He was, at any given moment, a scant few syllables away from asking Guan Shan for his hand.

The apple rolled from his palm: a wet, bruising thud against the varnished floorboards. Two pairs of eyes snapped to where he stood. 

He Cheng’s lips parted; their father’s nose flared in anger. 

_‘He Tian.’_ A hand, outstretched and reaching, lingering between a beseeching plea and the tight curl of a fist, and moments from either.

But it was too late. He Tian wouldn’t know which it became: he had started running.

*******

An alarm blared from the palace, shaking the boundary walls and shrieking through the town. He Tian felt the ground shaking beneath him, the heavy boots of the Royal Guard already in eager pursuit like a pack of hunting dogs. He knew the palace and the surrounding miles of the town as if the map were tattooed neatly into his green skin, but if anyone were to stop him and ask him where he was going, he couldn’t begin to answer. He couldn’t stay near the palace; he couldn’t go to Guan Shan. Anywhere obvious, any indulgent moment to catch his breath, and the Royal Guard would find him in minutes. He had to go somewhere else; he had to not think.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck—_

It took ten minutes to lose them; hostile voices drowning to nothingness behind him, the only frantic thump of footsteps his own. His lungs strained against his ribs, which pressed against the underside of his skin, grown stifling and sore beneath his leathers. The town snapped past him in a blur: the eave of a red pagoda, a shop window open to the spring breeze, a calico cat darting beneath his feet, settling watchfully beneath the tarpaulin of a market stall not yet open. 

There was no time for admiration, no thought that these snatched glimpses might be his last for some time. There was only this: his legs pumping beneath him, his eyes set determinately forward, the sword growing heavy with each bruising thump against his hip.

He knew the uneven pattern of cobblestones down to the town and the sharp corners of the hidden dirt-trodden paths and, further out, the gravelled slope of the bridleways that took him west and away from the palace. He knew the hidden pathways into the edges of the forest, where thickets of hazel and varnish trees crowded close. People from the town might have seen the dark streak of him through the streets, but they’d had no rain in a few days, and the breeze was travelling in his favour. Soon, even to the best of his father’s trackers, his trail would be lost.

Fifteen minutes, and he allowed himself to slow. Trilliums and lavender stems broke beneath the heavy tread of his boot. There were no paths here, no marked routes back to the palace. The further west he went into the forest, the sooner he would reach the cliffs at the edge of the kingdom that shuddered a mile down towards the grey sea.

He Tian walked until the sweat coolled on his skin. Overhead, the boughs fractured sunlight onto the forest floor, richly verdant, the blue sky hidden from view. He moved without aim, keeping the sun to his left. It had been years since he’d been this far into the forest, running with his brother as a boy, with members of the Guard during training, once on a search for a young girl from the town who had gone astray. But never this deep.

He Tian’s boot struck something hard, and he stopped. He took stock of his surroundings, and blinked twice. Ahead, a dead tree stood in the middle of a small clearing, the branches empty of leaves. There was the smell of wet, of rotting wood. The trunk of the tree was damp, a layer of bark torn away to reveal a rotten core the colour of amber like honeycomb. 

Strange mounds had formed around the tree and, moving closer, He Tian could see that they were chunks of stone grown over with moss and bramble. Something had stood here once. Once, the tree might have borne fruit. He Tian lifted a hand to press against the trunk, and pulled it away.

_Touch me._

He Tian started. Here, the sky was empty of birds. There was little wind, a faint rustle of leaves like the unravelling of a scroll. The words were too clear to have been heard in error.

‘Who’s there?’ He Tian called out. 

No answer came. Somewhere, the coo of an iora bird. 

He Tian turned back to the ruins. 

_Who else?_

‘I’m armed,’ He Tian said loudly, feeling ridiculous. 

_So am I._

He Tian spun, bracken and dying leaves crackling beneath his boots. His father’s betrayal had turned him delirious. He knew there was old magic in the forest, inaccessible to most woodland elves, and everyone knew of the wellspring of power lying untapped behind the borders around the mountains, warded off millenia ago by the dragons and unchecked since. But this… 

‘Who are you?’ he called out. _‘Where_ are you?’

_I am everywhere, and nowhere. I am where I have always been._

He Tian bit down on the inside of his cheek. The voice: in his head, and in the trees. Both male and female and neither. He Tian’s skull throbbed. If he turned his head, it was as if he could catch a glimpse of them, something just over his shoulder, just out of sight.

‘I have no time for riddles, creature.’

 _Impatient,_ they replied. _And you believe yourself so different from He Jun. A shameful trait._

He Tian’s face fell. ‘What do you know about my father?’

_Enough for one who has lived this long._

‘How long is that?’

The silence smiled. 

Slowly, He Tian said, ‘My mother used to tell me of a sorcerer bound to these woods for their crimes. Millennia ago, before the dragons moved south. The sorcerer plagued the North Kingdom and brought despair to hundreds.’

 _Hundreds, was it?_ Their voice was quiet, a half-murmur. He Tian’s eardrums tingled with the words, like a breath blown into his ear. His head felt hot. He resisted the urge to scratch at his temple. _The number truly has been augmented over the centuries... It wasn’t the North Kingdom then. There was only Moryo, a united land, home to the dragons. There were no emperors, or their precocious sons._

‘I’m right?’

_Do you want to be?_

He Tian opened his mouth, fully intending to give an answer, when voices began to rise from the west. He froze, mouth agape. His ears pricked. A jangle of armour, the hollow bark of a dog. He’d been too confident—he hadn’t gone far enough: the Guard had found his trail. 

_‘Shit.’_

_You cannot run forever, little prince._

‘I can try,’ He Tian muttered, head whipping around him, feeling trapped. South? How far could he go on his own before they caught him, before he even caught a whiff of the crossing into the South Kingdom? North and he’d come to the boundary that warded off the Dragon Mountain; any further west and he’d reach the cliffs, trapped between death and the Guard, who would bring him back to face his father’s cruel mouth and crueler hand. The cliffs, for a hesitant moment, beckoned.

 _The cliffs,_ said the voice. _Go to the cliffs. I still exist there._

‘I’ll be a sitting duck,’ He Tian said, a little strangled. The sounds of the Guard were coming closer. ‘They’ll corner me the second they get there.’

_I know of a way down. Run–I’ll show you._

He Tian bit down on his tongue. ‘How can I trust you?’ 

_Do you have a better option?_

He Tian swore. His own thoughts were panicked and senseless, but he ran. His legs protested at the spurt of movement, and he resisted the urge to unbuckle the sword at his hip and leave it like a javelin in the earth, as if marking his own grave for Guan Shan to find.

 _You’ll need it,_ the voice told him while he ran. 

‘Get out of my head!’ he cried, but didn’t stop. Trees whipped past him; a bramble caught in his leathers, nicked at the fabric, at the skin of his cheek. It stung. His shoulders burned from the morning’s training session, the muscles now tightly bunched in fear. Thick ropes of exposed roots tried to trip him; near its edge, the forest floor was dense with stinging nettles and great natural craters that would fill with water in the autumn. Eventually, the trees began to thin out, the taunting blue spreading out further across the sky. Above his own heavy breathing, he heard the caw of a gull, its wings caught in the coastal breeze. 

_Almost there,_ they said. _Straight west through the fields._

He Tian nodded, trying to draw more breath into his lungs. He reached the edge of the forest, and here the light was blinding, nothing but blue sky and a mile-long field the colour of wheat that sloped downwards. The long, thin-stemmed flowers and bushels of barley came to his knees, crackling beneath his boots as it snapped, and his throat grew scratchy from pollen and lack of water. 

He was exhausted. He wanted to stop. He wanted to fall to his knees and let the land swallow him whole. For the first time, he questioned himself: what did it matter if he let himself be escorted back to the palace? What did it matter if he married the Drow girl, took her hand, filled her with child? His sister-in-law didn’t mind that He Cheng also promised himself to Guard Qiu most nights; this was common knowledge in the palace. Perhaps Guan Shan would—

Another mile, and the field gave way to empty furrows of stony earth, crunching beneath him. Sweat ran in rivulets down his face, thick with grime and dust, and here the wind blew blessedly on his face. 

‘Where?’ He Tian demanded, voice scratchy and hoarse. He squinted against the bright sun, peered ahead to the blue-grey sea that whorled where the land ended. ‘Where’s the way down?’

_A little further. Straight to the edge. You’ll see it._

He Tian swallowed his fear. Behind him, the bark of a dog carried along the wind, and He Tian swore. They were getting closer; they were faster than him, and the adrenaline could only propel him so far. The thought of climbing his way down the cliffside now drained him.

His feet skidded on the gravel, and he shuddered to a stop, breathing hard. He pressed his hands to his knees, spat a globule of dust-thick spit onto the ground. His throat clicked when he swallowed. He was so thirsty. 

‘I don’t fucking see it,’ he said, and felt like he could cry. ‘You said I’d see it.’

_You’re standing on it._

He Tian stared down. There was only the chalky ground, and the edge of the cliff that lingered barely an inch from the toe of his boots. Was it hidden? Was this some magic he couldn’t access? The He’s were notoriously powerless, a lineage of impotent rulers that, somehow, still ruled. He Tian envied Guan Shan’s magic only sometimes. Now, he hated him for it. 

‘I can’t,’ He Tian said. ‘I don’t have the power.’

 _You don’t need it,_ said the voice. _Jump._

He Tian stared at the sea for a moment, sunlight glinting brightly off the cresting waves, and then turned. He could see the dark shapes of the Guards moving their way through the field. He Tian had already made them a path. His heart thudded achingly in his chest.

‘You tricked me,’ he breathed. ‘You said there was a way.’

_I didn’t lie: this is the way. Jump. I will catch you._

‘You son of a bitch,’ He Tian whispered, the wind snatching his words, whipping sweat-slicked strands of hair about his face, black as ink. ‘You were out to kill me from the beginning.’

 _You won’t die, little prince. Quickly now,_ they said, and something about their words shimmered, as if frustrated—or scared. _You must jump._

There was a cry lodged in He Tian’s throat. The sea at his back; his father’s Guard making their way too fast through the field. They were nearly at its edge, and the dogs would be snapping at his ankles soon. Would they drag him back, or give him the decency of letting him walk, untied and unmarked? He couldn’t be sure what his father’s orders were. He couldn’t be sure about anything.

_Jump. Jump. Jump._

He closed his eyes and thought of Guan Shan, his head bowed over a sword, hands moving across the blade with a whetstone. His flame-red hair. 

He Tian took a step back, which landed on nothing, and fell.

*******

He felt the water first, a grey weight in his lungs, the cold bite of it along his skin. Everything was wet and damp, and each breath stuck thickly in his throat. Shadows fractured on the back of his eyelids, bursts of light that came and quickly went. He tried to feel for himself: his arms, his legs, the soreness of his lips as he ran his tongue across them.

There was something gritty and rough between his fingertips—a bed of sand and shingle, pressing sharply into his palms, threatening to cut. He lifted his right hand; felt the damp of his leathers, coated in residue from the sea. 

The sea. 

He Tian’s eyes peeled open. He coughed, spluttered, made himself sit—and froze. 

He was on a small jut of sand that seemed to cling to the very edge of the cliffside. The spot would be invisible from the top of the cliff—perhaps disappeared entirely at high tide. It was late in the day now, the sky pinkish with sunset, wispy tendrils of cloud turned lilac, and the sea was dark. All around the small grove where He Tian sat, men moved across the sand, wearing the insignia of the Royal Guard.

_They can’t see you—I’ve made sure of it._

He Tian breathed in shakily. ‘Can—’

_But they can hear you. It’s a glamour. Try to keep still until they move on._

He Tian breathed out with equal care. Tentatively, he thought, _Hello?_

_Hello, little prince._

He Tian’s lips twitched. Carefully, he inclined his head back, staring upwards to the top of the cliff. It seemed to fill the sky. He shouldn’t have survived that.

 _Am I dead?_ he thought. _Am I haunting the cliff?_

He thought he could hear them snort. _I saved your life, and now I keep you hidden. Don’t insult my abilities._

He Tian almost shrugged, and then stopped. He watched the Guard move about the sand, prodding at seaweed and bracken, at large crabs drawn into their shells. Along the way, a huge piece of driftwood the length of three men had been washed ashore, bleached white by the sun.

‘We should turn back, Guard Qiu.’

The voice startled He Tian: a female guard, standing inches from He Tian’s side. She was talking to another guard further up, a tall figure crouched low, his fingertips pressed to the shingle. He Tian couldn’t see his face, but he recognised the crop of white hair, and the name.

Water lapped at the edge of the sand, and eventually the guard stood. 

‘Are you eager to bring the news to the emperor?’ Qiu asked the woman, turning. The corners of his mouth were downturned, dimples forming in his cheeks. ‘We should keep looking.’

‘Sir,’ the woman started. She had a hand on the hilt of her sword. ‘If his body comes ashore, it could be miles away. The tide will be coming in soon.’

Qiu shook his head. His gaze roamed the stretch of grey sea, passing along He Tian–pausing–and drifting straight past him. A shiver went through He Tian. The feeling of being seen and not-seen filled him with a sticky sense of dread. A small part of him—the same part that thought of turning back at the cliffedge—wanted to say, _I’m right here! You thought I’d die so easily? Ha!_

But instead, he stayed silent, waited and watched as Qiu shook his head for the second time and called off the search. As one, they began to walk along the coastline, boots squelching in the wet sand until they reached a curve in the cliffside—and disappeared. 

‘Fuck,’ He Tian murmured. He pushed himself to his feet, groaning in protest with his body. No matter what the sorcerer told him—dead or alive—he knew which one he felt like. ‘Where now?’

_We should talk, you and I, before I help you further._

He Tian, brushing sand down from his breeches, paused. He straightened, and said to the sea, ‘What do you mean?’

Gulls circled noisily above, swooping down the cliffside and nosing at the crest waves. He Tian watched them search for the last catch of the day before the sky darkened entirely. There were no fishing boats this close to the cliffs or the rocks that jutted through the shallow seas a little further out. Here, the search for food was a challenge.

 _I can only go so far with you,_ said the sorcerer, _and I have already done much. Without me, you would be dead—or taken back to whatever it is you are running from. There are things you can do for me in return._

He Tian narrowed his eyes, then he laughed. ‘You sound like my father. He—’ He Tian paused. A strange tightness had started to build in his throat, as if he’d swallowed a bout of water and forgotten to cough it up. ‘What the—?’ And then there were no words. Fluid filled his lungs, snatched sound from his voice, choked off his airways. 

_I don’t jest, little prince. Do we have a deal?_

He Tian’s eyes bulged, and he scratched desperately at his throat. _Stop!_ he cried. _I can’t fucking breathe!_

A reprieve, only for a second—a gasp of air he could draw in just enough to let him say, _‘You_ made me jump! _You_ made me run from those fucking woods! You—!’

He Tian crashed to his knees, a hand clawing into the sand, grit under his fingernails. It didn’t build slowly. There was air, and then there was not. This was dark magic, older and different than the Drow, who practiced their sacrilegious rites beneath ground, and against whom He Tian had some natural defence. Against this, he had nothing.

 _Please,_ he begged. _Forgive me._

 _Do we have a deal, little prince?_ they said coldly. _You give me your word? I could snap your neck now, if I wanted to._

 _Then do it,_ He Tian nearly thought, and the impulse was there—so strongly, enough that they’d hear it, probably. Better that than the life his father would force him to comply with, led through life like a horse with a bit in its mouth, and how else could he prove the sorcerer’s power? The water in his lungs wasn’t real—a broken neck was. His death would be a test. Would they find his body after? Would Guan Shan mourn him long before he gave himself to another? 

He Tian shut his eyes tightly. His chest was starting to burn. He nodded. _You have my word. Whatever you want: I’ll help you._

Air flooded back to his lungs faster than he could breathe it in, and he choked on it, bucking over on his hands and knees, spitting into the sand. Nausea rolled through him until eventually he could draw in even, trembling breaths through his mouth.

‘What do you want from me?’ he whispered. For a brief moment, out the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the hem of dark robes, thick layers shifting in the seabreeze, feet hidden behind the cloth. When he looked again, there was nothing. 

_Your body,_ they said.

He Tian balked, then stifled a short bark of laughter. ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he managed to say. ‘That belongs to someone else.’

 _Don’t be perverse,_ they said irritably. _You are a child. A_ male _child._

He Tian sobered. ‘Things might have changed since you were around,’ he said, pulling back to sit on his haunches. ‘But you can lie with who you like these days. Men and other men.’

_You think I am a man?_

The question was asked with such startling clarity, each syllable enunciated with a careful edge, that He Tian was stunned into silence. 

‘You’re a woman,’ he said. 

_I was, before I was killed and bound to the ruins by men._

He Tian digested this slowly, and then wiped his hands along his thighs, specks of dry sand catching in the wind. The sky had turned a dark purple now; on the other side of the land, the sun must have dipped below the horizon. He Tian shivered in his wet clothes, and blinked sand from his lashes as he looked up at the sky, studded with stars, pale jewells spilled out on a dark cloth, each one brighter than the last.

He asked, ‘Why do you want my body, sorceress?’

When a response didn’t come, He Tian thought for one delirious moment that he had imagined the whole thing, conjured some secondary being in his head to propel him into motion—to make his decisions where he failed. But then: _I wish to leave this place,_ she said. _My spirit is bound here. I can tether myself to you, and go wherever you go._

‘Until when? For how long?’

_Until we are far, far away._

‘Does my father know of your existence?’

_Of course. When your brother becomes emperor, he will know, too._

He Tian ran a hand over his face. His skin felt sore, as if burnt. The salt and late-spring sun had stripped his skin to rawness. ‘If my father doesn’t want to kill me now, he will when he knows I’ve freed you.’

 _You were running from him before you came upon me,_ she replied. _What does it matter now?_

He Tian grimaced. Perhaps she was right. He had already eavesdropped, already run, already evaded the Guard. And now he would be presumed dead, head dashed along the rocks, dismembered limbs floating out to sea where a fisherman would happen upon them if they weren’t already picked apart by some creature with a taste for elf blood. 

_Fuck,_ He Tian thought, peering around him. The sea was almost at his toes, seafoam skirting around his boots, bubbles pockmarking the sand while the tide receded like minute gasps for air.

 _It won’t be for long_ — _only enough to get away from this place._ After a pause, she added, _You will have some of my power at your disposal, too. The occupation of a host body works both ways._

He Tian felt his ears twitch. The temptation was base; a man like his father would have grabbed it by the throat and squeezed it like crushing all the juice from a berry, hands stained red. 

‘Magic doesn’t tempt me,’ he said. ‘If I let you in—do I still have control?’

_If you wish. Some find being used as a host body discomforting. They relinquish control entirely._

‘No. I’ll suffer it.’ He Tian pressed his teeth together until his gums ached. He was hungry; he needed fresh water. He needed a way off this cove; he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to swim once the tide swept in. ‘Do what you must. Get me away from here. I give you my consent.’

A sound, like laughter, or maybe it was only the gulls, and then—it was like being gutted with a sword. He Tian cried out, doubling over at the searing pain of it. He saw white, felt the tearing stretch of his bones and muscles and skin as if to accommodate a whole other person, one that was old and dark and had no mercy. And then, slowly, he straightened. His limbs felt weightless; he saw the cove and the placid sea and the cliffs at his back as if he were looking from behind himself, as if peering over his own shoulder. 

_It is done,_ she said. Her voice was clearer than anything He Tian had ever heard; more familiar than the sound of his own voice. He now caught the foreign lilt of her words, lightly accented from a place He Tian couldn’t name.

‘Where are we going?’ He Tian said, and his tongue felt heavy, and thick, like wading through mud. Was this the battle? Was this a war within himself to use what was already his—and now had become hers? He looked down: his twisted coronet was now in his hands.

 _East,_ she said. _East and east and further east._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday! This is for the lovely Emma [@plumb19](http://plumb19.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> Many thanks go to Asa, Viv, and Andy for their feedback on this work!

**One week before.**

The North Kingdom went into mourning a week after the first search. It was a hot day for a funeral, the air unbearably close for the people to bury their prince. The ceremony had been swiftly organised, the royal town of Sengōng dressed in white. A chariot would go through its streets that afternoon, led by members of the Royal Guard dressed in white robes, riding white horses, and there would be no body. The smell of lilies filled the air. 

Mo Guan Shan struck the short blade on the bench with a hammer, the metal knocked back beneath the assault. He held it to the thin glimmer of light, squinted at it, then brought it back down to his bench, still imperfect. 

The clank of the hammer reverberated dully around the workshop and into the thick silence of the empty streets. The forge roared, and sweat ran down the side of Guan Shan’s forehead. He wiped sticky palms into the leather of his apron, and brushed back strands of unruly red hair behind his ears. With each strike, he breathed out slow.

‘I think it’s finished, don’t you?’

Guan Shan, who disliked unexpected visitors at the best of times, grunted. ‘Are you a metalsmith?’ he asked.

Qiu, Commander of the Royal Guard, shrugged. The motion shifted the crossbow that was slung over his back, and he wore his sword at his hip. Qiu was dressed in summer military leathers: a pair of breeches tucked into riding boots, and a leather vest that was fixed at one side with hook and eye fastenings. It left his arms bare, the tanned muscle corded and thick. The kingdom’s insignia had been stitched with green thread over the left breast: a moon rising over the mountainous woodland, framed by bow and sword.

‘Perhaps in another life,’ said Qiu.

Guan Shan’s brows drew together. He bowed low over the dagger on the bench. He thought it odd, sometimes, that his people could live for a thousand years and yet lived only one way. But time moved differently for them—a liquid state, a millenia in which to accept their lot. 

‘Businesses are closed today,’ Qiu said when Guan Shan didn’t reply. ‘You can go home. Prepare for this evening’s ceremony.’

‘I’m not goin’.’

‘Home?’

‘To the ceremony. This is my home.’ Guan Shan leaned back. ‘I’m not goin’ to a funeral for someone who isn’t dead.’

‘Mo Guan Shan…’

‘I’m not. He’s _not_.’

Guard Qiu sighed in displeasure, muttering something under his breath. He rubbed at his forehead with the heel of his palm, then swiped it along the shorn bristles of his white hair. Sheathed at his side was the sword Guan Shan had finished forging for him only a week before. He Tian had peered at it over his shoulder, admired it. Had he only been gone a week? Guan Shan’s heart gave a plangent thud, a tight feeling like swallowing too-cold water.

‘How’s it goin’?’ he asked Qiu, nodding at the sword. ‘D’you like it?’

Qiu drew breath into his cheeks, as if grateful for the change in conversation. He patted the ornate hilt and said, ‘Cleanest cut I’ve ever made.’

‘And the fire?’

‘The fastest light I’ve managed with a sword. Nearly brought down the barracks yesterday.’

Guan Shan pictured it: the steel brought alight under the guard’s thermal touch, a ring of fire billowing smoke into the air as he swung it, as if creating an infernal portal.

Guan Shan nodded. ‘Good.’

Qiu allowed a slight smile. ‘The emperor should pay you a higher commission.’

‘Maybe you can talk to his son about that,’ Guan Shan grumbled.

 _Which one?_ Qiu looked ready to say, but then a pause. Remembering. Tonight, beneath the rising of the moon that was not yet full, they were going to bury a bundle of linen in the forest and speak rites aloud to an empty grave. The trees would hear the lie, and no new life would grow above it. New shoots couldn’t rise where He Tian’s body wasn’t.

‘I gave He Tian his sword, too,’ Guan Shan murmured. ‘It’s out there somewhere. With him. Alive.’

Qiu raised his eyebrows. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Just—’ Guan Shan shook his head, swallowing. ‘Just intuition.’ His eyes flicked up. ‘You don’t seriously think he’s dead, do you? You wouldn’t be here if you did. You’d be with his brother.’

The guard’s features softened. ‘You’ve lost, too.’

‘I haven’t—’ Guan Shan bit the words off. ‘I’ve lost nothin’. If you just came here to pity me, then—with respect, Commander—you can fuck off.’

Qiu shifted his stance, unimpressed. He was familiar with Guan Shan’s sharp tongue, his gruff demeanor. Guan Shan lit to anger the way Qiu could spark a flame from his fingertips. 

‘Where do you suppose he is?’ Qiu asked.

‘I dunno. Not here. But he wouldn’t leave without sayin’ goodbye. Not unless he had to.’

‘Had to?’

‘If somethin’ was wrong. If he had to protect somethin’.’ Guan Shan worked his tongue around his mouth, pressed the tip of it against an incisor, as if searching for a loose tooth. ‘I heard he ran to the woods. They said he got to the cliffs. He wouldn’t just fuckin’…’

‘We saw him, Mo Guan Shan. We saw him fall—’

 _‘He wouldn’t just jump.’_ Guan Shan’s fists tightened. ‘You searched for days. He would’ve washed up somewhere.’

Quietly, Qiu said, ‘Not all bodies get washed ashore.’

Silence fell in the workshop. The forge crackled, throwing strange shadows on the clay walls and glinting wildly off the blade Guan Shan no longer wanted to touch. It looked like a shark’s tooth. All elves knew that worse creatures lurked in the waters at the edges of Moryo. He thought of blood, a wisp of it trailing through the grey sea like smoke. Nausea rolled through him in a wave.

‘You can go now,’ he said.

A muscle jumped in Qiu’s jawline, and the guard breathed out once through his nose, eyes shifting around the workshop, before meeting Guan Shan’s once more. He stepped forward. His look had turned to something urgent, impatient, as if all time were now lost.

‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Tonight, after the rites. He _Shizi_ will be at the barracks.’

Guan Shan reared back. ‘The crown prince?’ he asked warily. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘He’ll be there—and so should you.’ Grimly: ‘He’ll answer your questions.’

*******

**Present day.**

He Tian woke to the sound of gulls.

Beneath him: linen, clean bedsheets, and all around the smell of low-tide. He opened his eyes to a canopied bed frame and slowly sat up. The bedroom was unfamiliar; simple, yet clean. There was only wooden furniture and a stack of towels and spare sheets for the cold months folded on a stand against the wall. A thin gauze covered the window to his left, filtering light weakly onto the deep sill made of oak, where a single cushion had been placed. There were no ornate touches of the palace in Sengōng, where the eaves were painted a gleaming red and trinkets crafted in gold boisterously filled its alcoves. He Tian looked around the room and found something stalwartly admirable about its plainness. 

‘Where the hell am I?’ he murmured, running his hands over the bedsheets. His training leathers were folded over a wooden armchair near the window, where a bucolic farming scene had been stitched into the seat cushion. He wore a linen shift he hadn’t left Sengōng with, and his sword lay beside him on the bed, as if sleeping. 

_Good morning._

He Tian started, half-reaching for his sword. His heart hammered in his chest, and he breathed out slowly. He had forgotten his companion. He had forgotten how her words whispered on the inside of his skull like a breeze. He scratched at his scalp, and grunted. 

‘This is nicer than woodland,’ he said. He barely remembered the last day of the journey, worn out with dehydration and exhaustion, feet slipping over rocks and through underbrush that snagged at his skin. He recalled a clearing, and a road, and carriages trundling along a dusty pathway.

 _You made it to a town,_ she said. _You nearly passed out on the threshold. I nudged you along to a room._

He Tian’s expression twisted. ‘For a woman who isn’t interested in men, you certainly like using their bodies. Without their permission, I’ll add.’

 _Don’t be crude,_ she said snidely. _You are a vessel, and I exist outside of your own consciousness._ There was a pause. _I admit for such an impotent creature—you are conveniently strong._

He Tian snorted. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and said through a yawn: ‘I suppose that’s something.’ He didn’t feel it. His legs and shoulders burned with fatigue; his nails were brittle and half-broken. She’d pushed him to breaking—kept him awake and moving long past his body’s capabilities. ‘What about you? You don’t mind, then? You can go without food or water?’

_I do not feel hunger._

Slowly, He Tian smiled. ‘Yes, you do. Even now, you hunger.’

The pause was brief. _I suppose you would know,_ she said. _You are He Jun’s son._

He Tian’s gaze drifted to the window, his smile gone thin. He pressed his feet to the floorboards. The task of standing was painful, his muscles sore and tired. He didn’t know how long he’d slept for, but it didn’t feel enough. He Tian pulled across the thin gauze covering the window.

‘Oh, mother _fucker_ ,’ he whispered. 

She made a soft, unintelligible sound. He Tian thought she sounded pleased. She said, _We’re a day’s ride from port._

‘We made it _this_ far?’ He Tian demanded. He yanked the gauze back fully, and fumbled for the latch on the window frame. With a crackling sound, the wood gave way, and the east-coast wind struck him. It made his eyes water, and He Tian leaned out fully until he was almost falling into the street below.

It was a small town with a forgettable name; he recognised it from journeys with his mother as a bothe final stop for travellers before the main port of Gangling, the territory shared equally by both kingdoms. The town He Tian looked out and onto was Gangling in miniature: cobbled streets and stone cottages with tiled terracotta awnings. There was a market every other day that sold the offcuts from Gangling’s daily market once the ships came in. He Tian could see the salting house in the distance, a large wooden structure like a boathouse which, if He Tian remembered correctly, employed most of the town.

He’d toured the place with his mother, watching how men and women rubbed salt into huge cuts of fish and meat that came off the human fishing ships, and recalled being led into a huge hall for pickling, where steam-filled glass jars stood in great shelves along one wall, ready to be filled and exported to Axle and its surrounding isles. A memory retrenched itself: the awful smell of it, nausea rolling in his stomach, the floor slick with sea water and fish guts. The handkerchief he’d held to his face, senses delicate and over-sensitised. His mother had laughed.

If He Tian squinted now, he could see Gangling on the far horizon, dry land sloping down towards the main estuary that fed into the Baolan Sea, and brackish water glistening under a hot sun. Sparse trees lined the main road to the port, either barren or coated in leaves curling to yellowness in the heat. Here, the land was close to water and should have been a fertile plain for agriculture, but the air was too hot this far south when the winds failed, and the salty water welcomed only marshy greenery along the coastal edge.

_This town is Jinhai. You were half-delirious with exhaustion; I’m not surprised you don’t recall arriving._

He Tian blinked. He retreated slightly into the bedroom, and resisted the urge to glance in the mirror over the washbasin, its glass marked with black spots at the edge. A strange ringing had started in his ears.

The sorceress continued: _At least it was known as Jinhai when I last passed through. It has not changed much, though wood seems to have changed for stone and—I think the coastline was nearer. The salt rotted the houses, if they weren’t careful._

The words didn’t come as an invitation. She wasn’t a courier or a politician inspiring a new conversation, eager to divulge tales of her travels and cultured affairs. No, this was a half-whisper she hadn’t intended to share. It made He Tian pause. 

How much could he find, if he pushed? 

The boundaries around the mountains in the north had begun to pale since they were first created, when the dragons left Moryo in the hands of the woodland elves and flew east to Longdì. Now, millenia later, the boundaries were a web stretched thin and weak. The sorceress was only one being, bound to the woods for long enough. Surely her magic had weakened, too? Surely she was posturing.

Her voice came quietly: _Would you like to test your theory?_

He Tian ground his teeth together. He remembered the air taken from his lungs at the cliffs, her show of strength—his own magical impotence. Gulls were circling ahead, and the breeze was making his skin turn to goosebumps. He withdrew fully from the window, and fixed the latch. He set himself on the bed. 

He Tian narrowed his eyes, and stared at the wall nearest the bedroom door. ‘The last I remembered, we were weeks from the east coast. We shouldn’t have gotten here so soon.’

_You were barely cognizant. And I acquired a horse. It’s in the inn’s stables._

‘Acquired.’ 

He remembered now: the gentle tug of its reins under the cover of night, the jolting motion of being in a saddle, the thud of hooves on hard ground. Had the idea been hers or his? He remembered the ache of exhaustion, ready to pass out and slide at any moment to the road beneath him. All he had known was _run._ How much, he wondered, had she pressed that fear into him? 

_Your survival instincts made themselves known,_ she said. _And you have the muscle memory of a thief._

‘Please,’ he scoffed. ‘I might be a prince, but I’ve stolen a thing or two in a hundred years.’

_Yes, I’ve seen—from your father. But you cannot steal from your parents; what’s theirs is yours._

A few moments passed, then He Tian let himself fall back onto the bed. His hands went to his sides, palms up. ‘I hate magic,’ he said weakly. 

After a few minutes where sleep seemed darkly inviting, He Tian struggled to his feet again. The day would be warm soon, and He Tian was hungry. He wanted to wash and find some breakfast before the ride. With luck, they would reach Gangling by sundown. He reached over and pulled his broadsword into his hands. Immediately, warmth rushed to his skin. He saw woodland, and green, and a half-moon rising over the treeline. 

It had been almost two weeks since he’d fled from the palace. Already, he missed its verdant hills, the bright mountain air, the thick dust that coated the barracks during training. He missed the scent of woodsmoke on warm, familiar skin. The tender hand of longing reached for him, beckoning.

_We cannot turn back now. You were right to leave._

‘Was I?’ He Tian murmured, squinting towards the window, where light now crested above the Baolan Sea and pooled golden in the bedroom. 

_Yes,_ she said. _And even if you were not—you owe me a debt._

*******

**One week before.**

Guan Shan heard the funeral procession from the workshop. He had lost light some hours ago, working only by the flame from the forge and various candles his mother had lit around him. She’d brought tea with her and a tray of sweetmeats that he had yet to touch, which she settled on bars of steel stacked against the wall. 

He didn’t like how she had looked at him, and felt bad now for his anger. It was not that she didn’t know how to brush it away—she did, even better than Guard Qiu or He Tian—it was that she was his mother, and saw right through it. He owed her honesty. He owed her the truth of his hurt, and his fear. 

‘Guard Qiu said the crown prince wants to speak with me,’ he’d told her. ‘About He Tian and what they’re sayin’ about him. How they think he died.’

‘Do you think that’s wise?’ she asked in return, filling two ceramic cups with tea. She had thrown them herself, a brief divergence into pottery that hadn’t lasted particularly long. Guan Shan took the painted cup, and shrugged. 

‘I think I wanna hear what he has to say. He owes it to me.’

‘Does he?’ she had asked, in a tone that suggested the heir to the North Kingdom didn’t particularly owe anything to anyone. It wasn’t an insult, but he heard her plainly: _You’re only a royal smith. What significance is that to him?_

Guan Shan said, ‘He Tian was gonna announce our coupling on his birthday.’

He heard her draw in a breath. ‘He planned for you to marry.’

Guan Shan stayed silent. He sipped at his tea, and picked the blade back up.

‘Why didn’t you _tell_ me?’

‘’Cause I told him not to say or do anythin’ about it,’ Guan Shan had said a little hotly, looking away and wishing he hadn’t told her at all. ‘He only told me the last time I saw him. I think he just wanted it to prove a point to his father.’

At this, his mother frowned. There was a sheen of sweat on her face, and specks of paint on her fingertips. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘Maybe. Guess we’ll never know.’

She folded her arms; she hadn’t touched her tea. ‘You don’t believe that. I know you don’t believe it, or you would have been at his funeral. You should have gone anyway to save face. The town knows about the two of you, and they think they’ve lost their prince. What are they going to think when even you aren’t mourning his death?’

Guan Shan put down the blade. ‘When have we ever given a fuck what the _town_ thinks?’ he’d replied hotly. ‘Is that what happened when dad left? We listened to _them?’_

She was quiet, tight-lipped, and she’d only stared at him until his anger simmered and petered out, a forge fire abandoned but still warm. The apology that he’d given her was reluctant and taciturn, and he’d owed her more. 

Now, hours later, he thought back over the conversation with a weight in his chest and locked the door to the workshop behind him. He drew the latch and slipped the key in his pocket. It was too hot for a robe tonight, but he wore one anyway, the hood covering his head. Qiu’s tone had hinted at secrecy and inconspicuousness. He took the alleyways between houses and small shops that backed onto the main street, the narrow ways growing steep as they veered towards the palace which, at night, was lit up by braziers in gold and red. 

The streets were empty: white flags and scraps of cloth hung from closed windows, and Guan Shan could hear the last few doors closing and townspeople bidding one another morose ‘goodnights’ from their doorways. The air smelled of lilies. On the ground, the petals of white peonies had been plucked and left to fall, and now lay in discarded clumps in the gutters.

He circled around the back of the palace, which was bordered by thick woodland and a wooden fence that stood between the forest and the barracks. The defences appeared weak, but there was warning magic around the perimeter, and every member of the Royal Guard would be prepared to face an intruder once the alarm sounded.

In the darkness, a figure stood leaning against a fence post. What little moonlight there was glinted down on them, short strands of white hair turned silver. 

Guard Qiu. 

Guan Shan raised a hand, and the guard lifted one in return.

‘I thought perhaps you wouldn’t come,’ Qiu said as Guan Shan came closer. His eyebrows were appraising, his harsh mouth pressed into a line. 

Guan Shan took the hand Qiu offered, using it as a means to lightly vault over the wall without detection. The trick to bypass the wards was deceptively simple: with their hands joined, the wards couldn’t distinguish between the guard and anything else. Guan Shan landed softly on his feet, crouching low, then straightened. 

‘He’s waiting for you,’ Qiu told him as he led the way towards the barracks. The barracks were quiet, and the voices they heard were the low murmurs of guards changing shifts. Guan Shan felt a sudden thrill: if they were stopped, there would be no consequences. No harsh reprimands or punishments. At Guan Shan’s side was the Royal Guard’s commander; ahead, the crown prince. For a moment, he was not a metalsmith of low standing, interloping where he shouldn’t. He was in the company of the elite.

He Tian’s status had always meant little to him. It was an identifier, a happenstance—not an opportunity. Guan Shan wouldn’t know what to do with it. 

Qiu led him to a wooden lean-to on the edge of the training court, built for spectators and soldiers to hide from rain or hot sun. Beneath it, a figure cloaked in black, the glimmer of a white shirt beneath the robes. Prince He Cheng had come directly from his brother’s funeral, Guan Shan realised. His chest panged.

Qiu whistled a single high note as they approached, and Guan Shan saw the prince nod.

‘You came,’ said the prince.

Guan Shan remembered himself as he halted to a stop and bowed low. The motion felt strange; he couldn’t remember bowing to He Tian once in the last twenty years. If he did it now, He Tian would’ve only laughed at him. But He Tian was not his brother. They shared the same dark features, green skin turned coppery from summer sun, but He Cheng’s brow fell low, affecting a severity in his eyes that was hard to ignore, and his body had a solid build like his father’s, where He Tian’s was lithe like his mother, willowy as the fae.

Guan Shan wetted his lips. ‘Your Highness…’ he began. ‘Is he dead?’

It was inappropriate to address him so openly. It was insensitive given where He Cheng had just been. But Guan Shan couldn’t play to palace politics and convention now. He had known the crown prince since he was a boy, catching sight of him from a distance, working at the forge for weapons that would one day be held in He Cheng’s hands. He was in love with his brother.

‘We don’t know.’

Guan Shan pushed air out from his lungs. ‘Do you think he is?’

He Cheng glanced at the Royal Guard Qiu, who stepped forward. ‘There have been sightings,’ Qiu said quietly. ‘On the roads to Port Gangling. A young man travelling alone.’

Guan Shan shook his head. Relief was a sharp sting on the back of his neck, a bubble of panic that snatched the air from his lungs with a fist. Alive, but already on the other side of the kingdom. ‘Gangling? But—why the fuck would he be _there?’_

Another look. Qiu said, ‘We think he might be going to Axle, and from there getting a boat across to Longdì.’

‘I still don’t get it.’

He Cheng sighed. ‘My father has arranged for He Tian to marry Princess Daiyu of the Drow. When he found out, he ran.’ 

‘You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me.’ 

Qiu started. _‘Mo Guan Shan—’_

‘About which part?’ He Cheng asked, an eyebrow lifted.

Guan Shan clenched and unclenched his fists at his side. He shook his head again; it became no clearer. A thick fugue soaked the inside of his skull like morning fog, opaque and impossible to wade through, full with monsters. 

_I’ll announce it tomorrow night. You and me._

If the emperor forced He Tian’s hand to a foreign bride, there would be none of that. There would be no union, no announcements. Guan Shan would be a figure that He Tian came to in the night. 

‘The Drow,’ he said thickly, and his voice was strange to his own ears. 

‘The Guard followed him to the cliffs,’ He Cheng continued. ‘I don’t know how, but I believe he survived. The tide was out far enough that a body would have been found. My father is content to believe he’s dead—or for others to believe he is.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I cannot leave here. My father has always been careful never to let my brother or me venture far from the kingdom, and now I’m beginning to understand why. Letters unsent or unanswered, emissaries that did not return. My father does not want the dragons to know of the union. Together, he and the Drow king plan to bring down the boundary around the mountains.’

‘They’ll harness the magic there,’ Guan Shan said numbly.

He Cheng nodded. ‘The boundary has been weak for too long, and no one has seen the dragons leave Longdì for millenia. The time is ripe. My brother’s marriage will be a binding contract of their alliance.’

‘Did He Tian know?’

He Cheng shook his head, looking bitter. ‘He overhead my father and I discussing the marriage, that’s all. He barely knows a thing. My father isn’t aware of how much I know. I imagine he intends to keep it that way for some time.’

‘So He Tian’s only runnin’… because of the marriage.’ _Because it would mean he wouldn’t be with me._

He Cheng nodded. ‘My father is watching me. He knows I don’t approve of the union.’

‘No one will.’ Guan Shan looked between He Cheng and Qiu. ‘No one in the kingdom’s gonna like this.’

‘My family have ruled too long for anything to come of it.’

Guan Shan narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re that confident?’

He Cheng’s laughter was hollow and strange, and not really laughter at all. ‘Of my father? Yes.’

‘And now what? He’s lost his bargainin’ chip. No groom, no contract. Or are you the next piece to play?’

There was a heavy silence. ‘The contract was binding,’ He Cheng said eventually. ‘If He Tian is dead, then the Drow will see this as my father not upholding his end. There will be consequences.’

‘You mean He Tian never had a choice from the fuckin’ beginnin’?’ Guan Shan asked hotly, choosing to ignore what He Cheng was saying: that the whole kingdom would pay for the emperor’s actions, a sordid arrangement with the Drow sealed in the night. 

‘I mean the Drow have offered to collect,’ He Cheng replied evenly. ‘If my brother is alive—the Drow will find him, and bring him back.’

‘And you’re _okay_ with this?’

‘What choice do I have, Mo Guan Shan?’ He Cheng said sharply. Guan Shan flinched at the way his name sounded on the man’s tongue. ‘Do you think my father will listen or even heed my protests? He has made his bed with the Drow—and we will all sleep in it. That is the consequence of his decision, as it always has been.’

‘You’re his heir.’

‘And until I’m emperor, my life is his.’

He Cheng’s truth was becoming clear: Guan Shan wasn’t royalty. He wasn’t anything close. He’d grown up with a house built with bamboo and sun-dried brick and a _kang_ bed, and he’d slept around the forge in winter. He Tian’s heritage had always been an indeterminable fact that was easy to ignore when He Tian ignored it, too. 

He Cheng did not ignore it, because he could not. His responsibilities were resolute and inevitable.

The thought of He Tian wanting to marry Guan Shan now seemed laughable.

‘What can I do?’ he asked, feeling hopeless—and stupid. 

‘I know you are a talented hunter as well as a smith,’ said He Cheng. ‘Qiu has told me.’

Understanding, and not wanting to, Guan Shan asked: ‘You want me to track somethin’?’

 _‘Someone_ ,’ Qiu corrected, confirming Guan Shan’s suspicions. ‘If He Tian has gone to Gangling, we need you to find him before the Drow.’

‘Tell him what my father intends to do,’ He Cheng instructed, ‘and make sure he reaches the dragons. Boats won’t be journeying often with the orc wars in Hàndì—you might reach him before he even leaves for Axle.’ From the pockets of his robes, He Cheng pulled out a leather pouch, which jangled heavily with coin. Guan Shan’s eyes went wide. ‘This will be enough for anything you need.’

‘And I’ll watch over your mother,’ Qiu interjected, his voice unusually soft. ‘She won’t want for anything while you’re gone.’

‘You’re so sure that I’m gonna go,’ said Guan Shan, not yet reaching for the pouch. ‘That I’ll even find him.’

‘My brother has never given his loyalty to anyone lightly,’ He Cheng replied. At the corners of his mouth, a touch of fondness, not quite a smile. The expression reminded Guan Shan startlingly of He Tian; their smile, when the men allowed it, was their mother’s. He Cheng said, ‘To you, he has always been steadfast.’

*******

**Present day.**

**__** _Feeling sentimental?_

He Tian rolled his eyes and rapped his knuckles on the edge of the inn’s bar. ‘I get the impression you’ve never been sentimental in your entire life,’ he murmured, careful not to draw attention to himself. 

_I wouldn’t divulge such a circumstance even if I had._

He Tian smirked. The answer didn’t surprise him; he was coming to know her sense of humour, dry and haughty, an arrogance that was built solely upon sarcasm and clinical wit. He Tian almost liked it. Her responses amused him, like the sore satisfaction of pulling out a loose tooth, still a little gummy. 

‘Can I ‘elp you?’

He Tian looked over at the disgruntled elf behind the bar. He was woodland, but had the harsh, guttural vowels of a man from the south west of the North Kingdom, where more fields of barley and corn dominated the lands than elves, and his skin was coppery from days of endless sun. He Tian wondered what had brought him to Gangling, a no-man’s-land where both kingdoms existed in harmony—or not at all. 

‘I want to send a letter,’ said He Tian, lifting a finger in acknowledgment. He’d already bought wine, the prices more expensive than most of the other inns in Gangling, but He Tian was weary from the day’s ride from Jinhai, and the man took his coin gladly for the last available room. 

The others had been full, redolent with the sweat of travellers and spilled cups of wine and dwarvish ales; here, the breeze flowed more freely, the floorboards were cleaner, and the inn was set along the front of the port, a little distance from the main boardwalk to the ships. He Tian could smell the strange scent of low tide, cloying on his throat, and he enjoyed the cool air on the back of his neck. 

‘S’that so?’ said the barkeep, looking He Tian up and down, and up again. ‘You can write?’

He Tian smiled and pressed a coin to the bar with his forefinger. It was more than the man deserved; He Tian watched the apple in his throat bob up and down, and up again. 

‘Ink and paper,’ said He Tian, ‘if you’d be so kind.’

The barkeep took the coin. ‘Suit yerself.’ 

He disappeared for a few minutes into one of the back rooms, then appeared moments later with a bundle of parchment, yellowed and dusty, and a well of ink that looked unopened for some years. It would do. He Tian took the tools with a thin smile and retreated back to his table, where a narrow glass of berry wine stood half-drunk. 

A minute later, the brush hovered over the paper. He Tian cursed as a blot of ink fell and spotted against it, creeping outwards.

_Perhaps you should take the error as a warning._

He Tian settled the brush on the lip of a metal dish and reached for his wine—not as sweet as he was used to, and dark with tannins. When the glass was empty, he considered paying for a whole bottle. 

‘Perhaps,’ he said under his breath, ‘you’d spare me for a few moments.’

_Are you suggesting I go somewhere? Where would I go? I am with you, always._

He Tian pressed his teeth into a smile, all teeth. ‘Thank you for the reminder, sorceress.’ 

_How mannerless,_ she countered. _You still haven’t asked my name._

He Tian leaned back. He glanced around; no one was watching. ‘If you wanted me to know it I thought you might have given it.’

He thought he heard her laugh. _Even now, you don’t ask._

He Tian went to the bar, and ordered a bottle. The barman raised an eye at the letter, unwritten—at the glass, emptied—and said nothing. He took He Tian’s coin and gave him a new glass and a bottle after extracting the cork with a sharp _pop._ Mulberries and cardamom soaked the air like summer in a dream, and then it was gone. He Tian retreated to his table, and filled his glass until it threatened to spill. He sat down with a huff. 

‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Your name? I’d like to know it.’

_I am Meilín._

He Tian took a sip. ‘Your name means beautiful woods,’ he said. ‘Are those the characters? No family name?’

 _Correct,_ she said. And then, _You chose well with the wine._

He Tian made a ‘ha’ sound. ‘I’ll pretend I don’t know that you’re on my tongue, Meilín.’

 _I’m not_ on _your tongue_ , she sneered. _I am open to your senses. The things you taste and smell. The things you long for. Like your woodland boy you can’t even write a letter to._

He Tian smiled. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to enter that territory.’ When her silence continued he added, ‘There were more to the stories I heard about you, you know.’

 _I know,_ she said. _I have seen them in here, gathering cobwebs._

He continued, ran a fingertip along the base of his wine glass. ‘Some said you were hungry for power—that you threatened to overthrow the whole of Moryo and drain its resources for your own satisfaction.’

_And the others?_

‘That you were heartbroken. That you’d lost and were seeking revenge.’

_And which do you believe? The woman scorned, or the creature who inflicted suffering no differently than would your own father, if he had the chance?_

He Tian paused. He considered the wine. There was a strange, defensive impulse lingering on his tongue that had yet to diffuse, something codified and entrenched. He pushed it down. His father did not need He Tian to come to his defence and protect his name. What values would he even hold up? _Here, look,_ this _disproves you. You were wrong about him._ But no, there was nothing. Embedded in He Tian’s ancestry—embedded within himself—was brutality. 

He said, ‘Perhaps you should tell me your story.’

 _Oh, I think you’re learning, little prince,_ she said, and then a barrier fell. 

*******

_‘Your name is Meixiu.’_

_‘And yours is Meilín.’_

_The two women assessed one another in the breezy portico of the embassy at Gangling, and Meilín arched a brow. ‘You are beautiful,’ she said, almost insultingly, as if Meixiu’s pointed chin and the high ridge of her nose were offensive, as if she deserved the meaning of her name too well. Her eyes were so dark as to be black, a few shades darker than Meilín’s skin, her pupils barely visible against the iris._

_Meixiu had her lips painted the purple of a courtesan, and they curved into a smile. They would do this often, Meilíu would come to realise. Something in Meilíu’s belly twisted, and this would happen often, too._

_‘I’ve heard of your power,’ Meixiu said, and then, with a playful glint: ‘You are not of the woods.’_

_Meilíu pulled a face. ‘I was conceived there.’_

_‘They must have been beautiful.’_

_Was she still jesting? Briefly, and with a note of rare uncertainty, Meilín replied: ‘They are the woods. Of course they were beautiful.’_

_A noise behind them; both women turned. He Gui Ren was approaching, his footsteps fast across the marbled entryway and out onto the embassy building’s portico. From here, it was only a short walk to the docks, where a ship waited to take them to Axle, and then across to Longdì, a journey Meilín had made with the emissary a hundred times already._

_Meilín could hear Gui Ren’s breathing, slightly laboured, the perpetual clearing of his throat, as if in ceaseless preparation of being heard. At last, he came into view, squinting against the morning sunlight. He was a small, wiry man, shorter than Meilíu and with a disproportionately round face. The point of his ears was hidden beneath a green cloth cap that bobbed as he moved._

_‘Ah, good,’ he said. A leather satchel was tucked beneath his arm, a small bag in his hand. ‘Very good. You’ve met.’_

_‘Barely,’ said Meilín. She made a gesture. ‘Another courtesan?’_

_He Gui Ren’s cheeks coloured. Again, he cleared his throat. ‘She’ll be coming with us to Longdì.’_

_Meilín said, ‘Will she survive the journey?’_

_‘I’ll do just fine,’ Meixiu interjected, before Gui Ren could reply. ‘I’ve travelled before.’_

_‘A_ well-travelled _courtesan,’ said Meilín, correcting herself blandly._

_Meixiu smiled, while Meilín stared at the plum-coloured curve of it, and said, ‘I’m a rarity.’_

_‘Indeed you are,’ Gui Ren agreed, half-murmured, the heavy look in his eyes sitting unpleasantly in Meilíu’s stomach. He put a hand in the small of the courtesan’s back, and Meilín said nothing; it was not her place. Both women could be in the employ of worse men—she knew that. Gui Ren said, ‘She’ll have her own room. You’ll help her with anything, should she need it.’_

_‘That’s sweet,’ said Meixiu, returning the tactile gesture, as if they were married—or old friends. ‘But I have a little magic myself, He Gui Ren.’_

_He Gui Ren didn’t seem offended. He was content with his own impotence; Meilín’s power saw to it that he wanted for nothing. After two hundred years at his side, she was only an extension of his self—his magic, his power, his third hand. Perhaps he said something like,_ Very well, _or_ I’m glad to hear it. _Meilín had stopped listening. The boat would be waiting for them, and she suddenly felt no sense of urgency, no rush. A breeze picked up, sweeping across the portico. The skirts of Meilín’s robes whispered; Meixiu’s dark hair caught in the breeze. A strand caught between her lips, pressing against her lipstick._

 _Meilín stared at it._ A little magic, _she thought, considering the journey ahead, wondering how many years Gui Ren might have Meixiu in his employ—in his bed. Her eyes lifted. She met Meixiu’s dark gaze, and startled._ Yes, _she thought._ She has a little magic indeed.

*******

He Tian stared at the wine. At some point during the memory, he had finished the bottle. He fell back into himself, feeling sick, as if the skin he wore was not his own, a poorly designed leather suit buckled tightly around his throat and his shoulders.

‘That man,’ he said. His tongue moved slowly in his mouth, as if swollen from cold. ‘He Gui Ren. He’s the one who bound you on the edge of the woods in Sengōng?’

_You are Gui Ren’s descendant. His children’s children became emperors._

He Tian breathed out slowly. There was more to her story—so much more, lurking beneath the surface of the memory she had just divulged. He’d watched it in some moments as if he was her, and in others as if he was outside of her like some unquestioned spectator. He knew there was more, and he would get it in pieces or not at all. He didn’t press. 

‘You want to go to the dragon lands,’ he said. ‘That’s what you meant. East to Longdì.’ 

_Where else?_

Where else indeed. He Tian shook his head. He’d come here without a plan. Tomorrow, he would find a ship that would take him to Axle, and from there he wasn’t sure what he would do. Spend the little coin he had left on food and a bed? What would his story be? How long would he survive before the Royal Guard caught wind of his scent, a tall woodland elf without magic making a life for himself in the ports of Axle, or in the mines, or somewhere in the small, poorer towns on the other side of the dwarvish island? 

He picked up the calligraphy brush, and began to write.

By the time he was done and the ink was dry, the effect of the wine was beginning to take hold with startling effect. He Tian rolled up the paper and went back to the bar. 

‘Get yer letter finished?’ the barman asked, looking at He Tian strangely while he refilled a barrel.

‘As finished as it can be,’ He Tian replied. He had a hand on the bar to steady himself, and stopped himself from shutting one eye just to focus. As a result, the barman’s set of eyes split into two. ‘How fast can you get this to Sengōng?’

The barman’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Yer writin’ to the palace, are ye?’

‘Someone in the town.’

He shoved his tongue in his cheek. ‘Could take a couple days. Unless you wanna pay fer dragon mail?’

‘Dragon—’ He Tian stopped himself. He dropped his voice slightly, leaned into his hands. ‘How much would that _cost?_ ’

The barman’s laughter boomed. Around them, the scant other patrons of the inn sniggered at He Tian’s idiocy. Probably, he deserved it. He was rich—and drunk. Both of which made him stupid.

‘Keep your money,’ came a voice to He Tian’s left, weary. ‘It’ll go in the morning by messenger. It’s included in the charge for a room. So is a bottle of wine.’

He Tian glanced to his left, where a young man his own age was sitting at the end of the bar. He had bright features: a high elf from the South Kingdom, blue-eyed and light haired, his skin a burnished gold, illuminated by the sheen of his armour. His shield was a huge thing in the shape of a kite, half his size, and rested ostentatiously against the man’s _chausses_. 

A paladin. 

‘Always so noble,’ the barman sneered at the man.

The paladin shrugged. ‘I make up for those who aren’t.’

The barman snatched the letter from He Tian’s hand, and He Tian watched him seal it with candle wax and a contemptuous wave before stalking off to the room behind the bar. 

‘He’ll shit in my bed now,’ He Tian remarked, watching him go.

The paladin chuckled quietly and said, ‘The war in Hàndì is affecting business; he shouldn’t be taking advantage of his customers to even the score.’

He Tian made a ‘hm’ sound. He considered reaching over the bar and grabbing a new bottle in compensation for the one he shouldn’t have paid for, but he didn’t want to aggravate the man any more. He wasn’t in the mood for a fight. Writing to Guan Shan had dampened his mood, and Meilín’s story was a heavy weight on his shoulders.

Looking up, he saw that the paladin was watching him, his blue-eyed gaze curious. 

‘Where are your travels taking you?’ the paladin asked. He twisted in his seat, so there was the dull clang of jostling metal. ‘If you don’t mind my asking.’

He Tian smiled wryly, propping himself against the bar. He spared a glance for his own sword, still leaning against the table with the remaining ink and parchment, then shrugged affably. 

‘Axle, perhaps.’

‘Why the uncertainty?’ asked the paladin. 

‘I haven’t found a boat that can take me yet. Most seem only to be making the journey once a month.’

‘Have you spoken with Peng Fei?’

He Tian cocked his head. There was an open honesty to the question that tried its hardest to assuage He Tian’s concerns. Perhaps the paladin was merely that—a paladin, and not a man hired by the emperor. 

The mistrust was hard to shake; He Tian felt it like the head of an arrow still embedded in his thigh, a jolt of pain with every step. He’d have to dig in deep to get it out, fingers bloody and gouging. What would be better: the greater hurt, over quickly? Or the pain that lingered, inescapable? He Tian didn’t know.

‘He’s the dragonborn captain of the Nightjar,’ the paladin continued. He drank a mouthful of something that looked like ale and said, ‘He’ll be making the journey in less than a week.’

‘Huh.’ He Tian dragged his knuckles across his jawline, and ventured, slurring slightly: ‘You’re going to Axle, too?’

‘Myself and my ward, yes. We’ll be on Peng Fei’s ship.’

‘Don’t suppose he could take another passenger?’

The paladin’s lips quirked. ‘He gave me the impression that if you can pay, he’ll take anyone. Which…’ He surveyed He Tian’s leathers, the sword glinting at the table. The wine he had paid too much for. ‘I suppose you can.’

‘Some,’ He Tian said. ‘Not for long.’

The paladin didn’t comment, except to say: ‘I am Zhan Zhengxi, by the way. I figure you should know my name, if we’re going to manage a week on a ship with one another.’

‘He Tian.’

Zhan Zhengxi’s cup halted halfway to his mouth, and the paladin gave He Tian an odd look. ‘Isn’t that the name of the North Kingdom prince?’

He Tian paused, then shrugged with a slow smile. ‘It’s common enough.’

It wasn’t, and Zhengxi’s gaze was long as it slid between He Tian and the glinting sword still at the table. Meilín had charmed his coronet; it was not gone, just unseen, still resting on the crown of He Tian’s head. Zhengxi stared at the space where it should have been as if—if he looked hard enough—he would make out its thorny, twisting vines. 

No more was said. At that moment, there was a light thumping sound from the back of the inn, like rain on a metal roof, and He Tian watched as a robed figure appeared from the staircase that led towards the inn’s rooms and rushed towards them. 

‘You’ve made a friend!’ the new figure exclaimed, smiling brightly enough that He Tian fought the impulse to shield himself. 

Another southerner, fair-skinned, almost distractingly pretty. A length of white-gold hair had been drawn up tightly to the top of his head and trailed down the long nape of his neck. His lashes and brows were as fair as the rest of him, as if the sun had bleached him of all colour, and his hands were as delicate as a woman’s. He wore the robes of a sorcerer; a fold in the silvery fabric was weighed down with what He Tian presumed was his spellbook, unique to any caster. 

Beneath the affectionate arm the man had slung around Zhengxi’s shoulders, Zhengxi sighed, nearly spilling his ale. Swiftly, introductions were made, and He Tian inclined his head at Jian Yi, a sorcerer and Zhengxi’s oath-sworn ward. Zhengxi seemed like a patient man. Jian Yi seemed like the type to test that better nature frequently: eccentric, excitedly nervous, unconscious of his limbs more often than not. The thought came unbidden, and brought a smile to He Tian’s lips: Guan Shan would hate him. 

‘Peng Fei is a good man,’ Jian Yi said, nodding with a fastidious eagerness. ‘He’ll get you safe passage if you have the coin.’

‘I’m counting on it,’ said He Tian. He gestured a hand between them. ‘What takes you to Axle?’ 

Jian Yi’s arm still hung around Zhengxi’s shoulder. He leant his weight fully against the paladin, and the fingers he had been drumming against Zhengxi’s clavicle stilled. 

Zhengxi answered for them: ‘We’re only stopping shortly before Longdí.’

He Tian slid his gaze between the two of them. Meilín had been quiet for some time, and he didn’t press for her. He felt her presence like a migraine in the back of his skull that had finally started to weaken. There was no monarchy in the South Kingdom—no queen or emperor—and it was led instead by a council. But whoever Jian Yi was, he was important enough to warrant a guard without relying on his own powers as a means of defence.

‘You have a way to go then,’ said He Tian, thinking of nothing else to say. There was an amiable tension between them of travellers meeting for the first time, and not wanting to say too much. He Tian didn’t know where to begin, and he was regretting the wine that made him slow.

Zhengxi nodded. ‘We have a text to collect that couldn’t come by messenger.’

 _Too mundane,_ He Tian thought, sensing a half-truth, but didn’t press.

‘And you?’ Jian Yi asked, eagerly diverting the conversation. ‘Where are you going after Axle?’

He Tian shrugged, rolling his shoulders, feeling tight. ‘Yet to be decided. Perhaps the same.’

Jian Yi and Zhengxi exchanged a glance. Jian Yi said, ‘So it’s like that, huh?’

He Tian frowned, his vision a little distorted. ‘Like what?’ 

Jian Yi leaned in, eyes darting quickly around the tavern. Furtively, he whispered, ‘Have you got some girl pregnant in your hometown? Are you on the run?’

Zhengxi rolled his eyes. ‘Jian Yi...’

He Tian didn’t reply. He snorted at the insidiousness of it, and got to his feet. He felt their curious gazes as he fetched his sword from his table, and affixed it to the belt at his hip. The door to the inn opened as a patron left, and a mix of air, curiously hot and cold, swept through before it could close again. 

For a moment, he thought of wandering the port for the evening, the heels of his boots clicking against the boardwalk, the sea breeze, the smell of ocean and seaspray and the quiet knock of boat hulls swaying like trees. A moon, a week from fullness, disappearing over the rising architecture of the port town. 

But no—if Zhengxi was correct, He Tian would have a week before they set sail for Axle, and a bed lay empty and waiting for him to fall into. Tiredness pulled at him like pressing on a sore tooth. There would be more days and nights to wander the streets. And it didn’t matter—at the edge of the water or in his bed, he would be alone. The journey would be his to make alone. 

The thought sobered him. He wanted no more wine; he wanted to bathe, to have his clothes cleaned, to drag a whetstone across the edge of his sword until his fingers cramped and shoulders ached with the motion. He wanted sleep.

The barman had yet to reappear, and He Tian put a copper piece on the table. He nodded to both men.

‘I’m not running,’ he told them simply, warning against further questioning. ‘I’m travelling.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this chapter - and I hope you all will, too! This is for the lovely Emma [@plumb19](http://plumb19.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.
> 
> Many thanks go to Asa and Viv for their wonderful feedback!

Guan Shan was standing beside the wooden dresser in his bedroom when his mother walked in. She had been hovering all day because he had told her everything. She would’ve found out eventually. Qiu—tasked with ensuring her safety while he was gone—would’ve had no choice. 

He had a small bag at his feet. Inside: a glass water canteen with a woven cover, three clean shirts, a bar of soap, a bundle of dried ginseng root and wolfberry, and a few pieces of dried meat wrapped in wax paper. It wasn’t enough, but He Cheng told him to travel light, and Guan Shan didn’t know where he’d end up. The coin he had would get him far; he could buy anything he needed. 

Around his hip, he had affixed a small blade, and hidden beneath his shirt and a fitted green leather vest was the coin pouch He Cheng had given him, along with He Tian’s intended birthday gift. Guan Shan had already taken two pieces of gold from the pouch and left them under his mother’s pillow. She would find them when he was gone. 

‘When will you be back?’ she asked him now, hovering in the doorway. She was not looking at him but at the bag at his feet, the corners of her mouth and eyes sloped down in worry.

‘Don’t know, Ma,’ Guan Shan sighed. ‘When I find him.’

‘You’re so sure that you will.’

‘You’re so sure I won’t?’ 

‘I didn’t say that, Ah-Shan,’ she countered, thickly and with frustration. 

He knew what she was feeling; he’d felt it. While the people of the town had paraded through the streets in their white mourning clothes, Guan Shan had worked his jaw until his teeth ached and sharpened a blade until it cut just to look at. The both of them were frustrated that He Tian was alive; Guan Shan because no one believed it—his mother because she did. 

‘You can’t change my mind,’ he told her, pulling on a light, hooded cape that cut off at his hips and fastened at his throat. ‘I’m goin’. He deserves to know what’s happenin’.’

‘He _Shizi_ should have given the task to someone else. You’re a boy.’

‘I’m of age, Ma.’

She sucked on her teeth and turned her head away, muttering something too low for him to catch. He picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, then proffered a crumpled sheet of parchment in her direction. 

‘Read it,’ he said. ‘It came this mornin’.’

‘Ah-Shan—’

‘Read it, I don’t mind.’

She took the letter. He didn’t watch for the change in her expression, and ignored the pit in his stomach that came from letting her read He Tian’s declarations. Instead, he let his gaze linger around the plainness of his bedroom, its small four walls that only seemed to grow smaller. He knew it could be some time before he returned. He knew, thinking of the Drow on He Tian’s tail and the machinations of the emperor, that he might not even return at all. 

The letter was spotted with ink blots and _I love you_ ’s, the shaky writings of a stupid martyr, and had been indelicately sealed. It had come from Port Gangling. He Tian had travelled fast, and Guan Shan needed to be faster. In the week it would take him to get there by horse, He Tian could have boarded a ship to anywhere he wanted. Maybe he’d come to his senses and return, meeting Guan Shan somewhere along the road. Maybe the Drow would get to him first. 

After a few silent minutes, he asked his mother, ‘If dad ever wrote to you like that, are you honestly gonna tell me you wouldn’t answer him?’

She gave him back the letter. ‘It shouldn’t have to be you. His father has the Royal Guard. He has a national _army_ , if he wants.’

‘You know why it has to be me. Emperor He’s already held his funeral.’

She looked down at her feet, on the verge of crying. When Guan Shan moved as if to reach for her, she only held up a hand. 

‘Wait here,’ she said thickly. 

Guan Shan waited while she left the room. He heard her footsteps retreat into her bedroom and return moments later with something in her arms, small and draped in dark, heavy cloth like a swaddled child. There was a layer of dust on it; his mother’s arms trembled, though it didn’t look heavy. Her expression was composed and her mouth set, no longer resigned but resolute. She lay the bundle on his bed.

‘It was your father’s,’ she told Guan Shan quietly, gently unwrapping the folded cloth like a jeweller revealing her wares at market, until the dagger lay uncovered. It was a piece of silver and alloy, the hilt worked finely and studded with jewels—beautiful, but not decorative. It had been made with every intention of being used. ‘It’s been sitting under the bed for years. I couldn’t sell it.’

Guan Shan stepped forward. His eyes had gone wide. It was finer than anything he’d ever made with his own hands.

‘He never took it with him?’ he asked, half-breathless. He wanted to put his hand on it. 

Over the years, his mother had kept little of his father’s things. She’d sold most of them when they needed the money; had his clothes remade and mended into something Guan Shan could wear and would eventually outgrow. By Guan Shan’s centenary, he’d earnt enough from smithing to buy his own clothes, cleanly cut and costly, his father’s hand-me-downs given away to charity collectors travelling from the provinces. Guan Shan regretted his arrogance now; he regretted his pride. 

‘I suppose he thought he’d never need it,’ said his mother.

Guan Shan’s eyes tightened. He regretted the things he’d said to her yesterday, his father’s memory like a weapon that he knew how to wield—all spite. He’d grown up with the town’s gossip, its petty politics that arose when the palace was quiet and bore no interesting fruit. Young and impressionable, part of him had believed what they’d said—that his father had left voluntarily. That he’d abandoned his wife and child at the shore and sailed off for another life—another woman. 

Guan Shan considered the dagger now and what it could mean that his father had left it. Was it a meagre offering—some ill-purposed means of defence that meant little in the hands of a child or his mother, or a hunk of metal to be sold? Or maybe it was nothing at all and Guan Shan’s father had had every intention of coming back?

‘It was the finest thing he ever made,’ Guan Shan’s mother said. ‘He finished it just before he left. He’d want you to have it.’

Guan Shan gritted his teeth. ‘Would he?’

‘He loved you. He loved us both. If nothing else, it’ll keep you safe.’

He straightened his back. ‘I don’t need it. I’ve got a dagger.’

‘Have two,’ she said. ‘He charmed it; it will always return to you. Maybe if he’d taken it himself—’

But she stopped herself short. They couldn’t think in hypotheticals; too much of that and it hurt, an aching for what wasn’t and what wouldn’t be. It had been almost seventy years and, despite the proficient memory elves possessed, Guan Shan had forgotten his father’s face. Maybe he’d chosen to forget. His father wasn’t coming back. 

He came forward and took the dagger in his hand. The metal was cool in his palm. He felt a pull beneath his shoulder blades, and his grip tightened. His mother’s gaze was assessing. 

‘Take it,’ she said firmly, imploring. ‘Use it. Come back alive.’

*******

Outside, the air was muggy, a close thing on Guan Shan’s skin and too hot for springtime. He resented the journey already: the insects that would bite at his skin, the ceaseless hum of cicadas at night. It was likely that he’d get caught in a storm, something to break the tight pressure in the air, but he looked forward to it. Hot rain on his skin, a cool wind that would shudder through Moryo like a lover’s sigh, unpent.

Guan Shan forced himself to focus. The horse moved slowly beneath him, a small but spirited Yanqi that would be hidden in the cover of night. He had untacked her from the barracks with Qiu on guard, and he was out of Sengōng with hours to go before dawn. It was dangerous to travel the roads so late, and the sky was heavy with cloud, but it was more dangerous to be seen and stopped. 

It would be a day or two before someone noticed that the smithing boy was gone, another day before his mother’s placid smile became an insufficient answer to prying eyes. Qiu promised to handle things. He had a story: Guan Shan had left Sengōng to sell his wares, needing space and a long ride to overcome the loss of the prince. He’d given Guan Shan travelling papers, but they’d mean nothing to the Drow or anyone Emperor He would send out if they found him, who wouldn’t care for Guan Shan’s papers or his answers. 

By the end of the week, he could be back in a cell in the palace under Emperor He’s orders, He Tian could be in Drow shackles somewhere on a ship between Axle and Moryo, and all of this would have been for nothing.

 _Fucking idiot,_ he thought, not for the first time. _Why couldn’t you have come to me? We would’ve sorted this out together._

But he knew He Tian had been scared, and he knew relying on someone you loved was easier said than done. It was easier to run than to burden. It had taken Guan Shan one hundred years to learn that easier was not better.

He rolled his shoulders and pressed the horse onwards through the night, setting his gaze firmly along the quiet road that led south-east to the border and, eventually, to Moryo’s major port.

It was going to be a long ride.

*******

A week passed before He Tian eventually met the captain of the Nightjar. He spent his days wandering the port, drinking cold tea in its cafés and walking the clean cobbled streets, wide enough for boat materials to be trundled on wooden carts between its low-rising buildings made of sandstone and red mortar. The town of Port Gangling, if not for the pressing blue of the Baolan Sea, was the colour of the sun. 

‘How did you do it?’

‘Hm?’ He Tian asked. He had his eyes shut, the sun beating down on his face, the coastal breeze washing away the heat. Here, he could fall asleep. He and Jian Yi were sitting in the courtyard of a _riad_ -style house, which had been built by an Axle dwarf merchant and turned into a café a few decades ago after his death. 

Around the courtyard, the blossom of orange trees was turning to fruit, and the smell of citrus came and went with the wind. The wicker-backed chairs creaked as He Tian and Jian Yi reached for their cups of cold fruit tea or quietly assessed the arrival of new customers, and a glass windchime trickled sound from a lone persimmon tree. Zhengxi had gone into the markets for the day to acquire provisions for him and Jian Yi before they sailed in the morning. He Tian was a sufficient enough guard for a few hours. Later that night, they would meet at a tavern popular among sailors, where Peng Fei and the other passengers would gather before boarding the ship. They would set sail at first light. 

‘The owner of the inn,’ said Jian Yi, chewing on the flaky pastry of a sweetmeat studded with rock sugar and ginger. His sorcerer’s staff leaned against the table. ‘How’d you get on his good side? He hated you the minute he saw you, now he’s calling you _son_ and _brother._ Tomorrow he’ll call you _xingan_!’

He Tian snorted at Jian Yi’s false outrage. _Heart and liver._ Had Guan Shan ever been that affectionate? He couldn’t remember. 

‘We won’t be here tomorrow,’ he said, then gave an affectatious shrug. ‘Carrying a barrel here, cleaning a table there… That’s all it takes to win someone over.’ 

It was a talent he had acquired young: making people like him with an almost unwilling ease. He wasn’t sure what it meant that Jian Yi had noticed it. Guan Shan had been the first to notice, He Tian remembered, remarking on it like it was an insult. For the first time, He Tian had felt not like he was being watched, but that he’d been seen.

‘ _Wā…’_ Jian Yi leaned back. ‘ _That’s all_ , he says. Does that make him an idiot or you a genius? He gave you the room for free last night, didn’t he?’

‘It was the least he could do.’

Jian Yi shook his head, sucking sugar from his fingertips. ‘Disgusting,’ he said. ‘Wish I had your talent.’

‘It isn’t a talent,’ He Tian said. ‘Not like your ability to eat these pastries.’

Some were plainly sweet, others filled with plum jam and persimmons like nuggets of gold. The waiting staff had grown familiar with Jian Yi’s appetite for sweets—already this was his third visit in a week with He Tian—and the platter today had been presented comfortably high and with a fond, almost eager look, as if Jian Yi were a poorly child in need of sustenance. 

Jian Yi shrugged, taking another. ‘What if I’m hungry later?’

‘Then—’ 

‘I have one talent,’ Jian Yi said, his thoughts hinged on something enough to interrupt. ‘I annoy people.’

He Tian lifted his brows. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I annoy Zhan Zhengxi.’

He Tian snorted again. ‘Does it matter? He’s your paladin.’

‘He’s—he’s not _mine,_ ’ Jian Yi stammered. A blush like sunburn made his cheeks ruddy. ‘Paladins aren’t slaves, they’re—’

‘Oath-sworn, I know.’

Jian Yi nodded. ‘Too loyal for their own good.’ With a downward look, he added, ‘We’ve known each other since he was young. He’s with me because he has to be, not because he wants to.’

‘Better that he’s with you than not, isn’t it?’ He Tian asked, pressing carefully. He’d learnt little more since his first meeting with the two men, but the secrecy was shared. He Tian had given nothing away. The three were at a stalemate, and information when it was given was chosen carefully and precisely, as if they were hostages—or courtiers.

Jian Yi gave He Tian a surprisingly sharp smile, a thing that had appeared rarely and unexpectedly in the week He Tian had known him, sharing drinks or wandering the port together. _I annoy people_ , he’d said. How much of that was on purpose—a defence mechanism to ward off those he simply didn’t like? At the very least, Jian Yi liked Zhengxi. The obviousness of his feelings was plain and painful. 

‘It is better, you’re right,’ Jian Yi said eventually. ‘I’m glad he’s here. He keeps me in line.’

‘Drinking tea and eating expensive pastries,’ He Tian remarked, sweeping a gaze around their surroundings. ‘Do you think you’re straying so far?’

‘I can,’ Jian Yi admitted. ‘If I’m not careful.’ His closed-off expression turned playful. ‘I think you owe me something for that bit of information.’

‘Hm. What’s your currency?’

‘Oh, the usual.’ Jian Yi ticked off his fingers. ‘Family history, love life, sordid affairs…’

‘Gossip.’

Jian Yi reached for another sweetmeat. ‘I’m easily satisfied.’

He Tian’s lips twitched. He could see that. ‘I have someone,’ he said. ‘Back home.’

‘Which is where, exactly?’

‘Ah-ah,’ said He Tian wagging a finger. ‘That’s love life _and_ family history. Take your pick.’

Jian Yi chewed, considered. He stuck his forefinger into the back of his mouth and dug for rock sugar that had solidified in his molars like a filling.

‘Continue,’ he said eventually, satisfied with his findings. ‘I wanna know about this _someone._ ’

He Tian conceded. ‘He’s a smith. He made my sword.’

‘About that…’ Jian Yi started, but then stopped. That was another question. Sighing, he waved He Tian on. 

‘He’s nothing like you. Or Zhengxi.’

‘Should we be insulted?’ Jian Yi asked, grinning.

‘That you’re not worthy of my affections?’ He Tian joked. ‘That’s your prerogative.’ Then he shook his head. ‘He’s older than me, only slightly, which—’

‘Which?’ Jian Yi prompted, impatient, but He Tian had frozen—for two reasons.

The first, because it suddenly dawned on him that he was of age now. He had missed his birthday and the celebrations Emperor He was going to throw in his honour, which now seemed like a ruse. The second, because a Drow had walked into the courtyard of the _riad._

 _‘Shit,’_ He Tian hissed, hunkering down in his seat. He snatched a fan-shaped cloth napkin from the table and held it high to hide his face.

‘Uh,’ said Jian Yi. ‘He Tian—?’

‘Shut up,’ He Tian snarled. ‘Don’t say a word, and _don’t look._ ’

Over the edges of the folded napkin, he could see Jian Yi’s head swinging around to do just that. He Tian kicked him in the shin beneath the table, but Jian Yi, rubbing at his bruised leg, had already seen the Drow. All chatter in the _riad_ had ceased.

Jian Yi drew in a breath. ‘Oh,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Is that a _Drow_?’

Near the entrance of the courtyard, the man was speaking with the maitre’d in a low voice, the bough of the orange tree shadowing his already dark skin, his figure lean and wiry like a spider, his features chiseled and pockmarked like rough stone. The Drow were still elven beings, but looking at the man across the courtyard dressed all in black, He Tian saw nothing in him that bore any resemblance to himself or the high-elf before him. 

He Tian hadn’t seen a Drow for decades; they surfaced rarely from beneath the mountains of the North Kingdom, and even rarer did they travel. Port Gangling did not have Axle’s international fame, but it was still a crossroads to all manner of creatures coming in and out of Moryo. Was it a coincidence that a Drow would walk into the café where He Tian now sat, hundreds of miles from Sengōng? He Tian doubted it very much. 

An unnameable fear was starting to seep beneath He Tian’s skin. 

‘You know them?’ Jian Yi whispered, leaning forward across the table. 

‘No,’ He Tian said grimly, ‘but I’m betting they’ll know me.’

‘And that would be bad?’

‘Very.’

Jian Yi’s pale gaze darted between He Tian and the Drow, who was now beginning to walk to a table near the back of the courtyard, across from where they were sitting. He Tian’s heart was thudding loudly in his ears, and he rubbed at his chest as if to ease the pressure.

‘Alright,’ said Jian Yi. He tugged the sleeves of his robe back with a precise tug of each hand’s forefinger and thumb. ‘Sit still,’ he instructed.

‘Have I got a _better_ option?’ He Tian ground out, and then narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just wait.’

He Tian held his breath as Jian Yi closed his eyes and began to murmur something quietly. It was a language He Tian had heard before but didn’t know—the language of the dragons. For a few moments nothing happened, and He Tian had an eye on the approaching steps of the Drow as the dark elf walked to the back of the courtyard—and then he felt it. A strange, tingling sensation began to creep across him, like slipping into a pool of water as warm as his own skin. He shuddered with it and looked down at himself.

He Tian stifled a cry. 

His body was there—and yet it wasn’t. What Meilín had done for his coronet—hiding it from view in plain sight—Jian Yi had done to his entire body. If he concentrated hard enough he’d see it, but the gaze of a passerby would slide right past him, a moment of disconnect between their brain and eyes, something else filling in the gap.

‘Stay still,’ Jian Yi ordered again, when He Tian started to shift. ‘It won’t work if you move too much.’

He Tian obliged. His heart thudded with the footsteps of the Drow, and he realised he’d stopped breathing when the man was only a few paces away. He Tian had no magic, but he and the rest of the He bloodline had an innate defensive wall against the dark magic of the Drow. What might harm an ordinary elf would only make He Tian flinch before he had a chance to reach for his sword and _lunge._ But He Tian couldn’t take any chances. He wasn’t going to test this now. Something in the back of his mind was blaring warning signals. 

He didn’t move.

His muscles ached in stillness as the Drow took the last few strides towards their table, glanced at Jian Yi once with indifference, at the seemingly empty chair where He Tian sat… and wandered past.

There was the loud scraping of a wooden chair against the flagstones as the Drow seated himself at the farthest table, positioned just out of reach of the afternoon sun’s rays. Breathing out slowly, He Tian glanced over his shoulder. He watched as the Drow picked up the menu on the table and thanked the waitress who had approached for the complimentary tea. 

Jian Yi was still murmuring in Draconic, hands in loosely closed fists on their table. He Tian’s skin still tingled with magic and the discomfort of having his back to the Drow. He felt open and vulnerable, ready for a knife between his shoulder blades or the severing cut of the Drow’s magic.

 _I could have done that,_ he heard Meilín say, sounding a little put-out. _The illusion charm._

Probably, she was right—and she should’ve, giving him the facade of magical ability. The fewer questions about his own impotence, the better. The He family line was already known for not having magic at their disposal—a show of power would’ve severed any connection Jian Yi and Zhengxi had already made between He Tian and the famed North Kingdom prince. 

_You’ll have other opportunities,_ He Tian thought back at her, as if placating a child.

To Jian Yi he said, ‘He could be sitting there all afternoon.’ He kept his voice low enough that it almost hurt his throat to speak. ‘We should leave.’

Mid-incantation, and with the same lulling cadence, Jian Yi said, ‘If you move, he’ll see you.’

‘Not if we’re fast. I have my back to him.’

Jian Yi peeled an eye open. ‘You seemed pretty scared when you saw him. Now you’re all bravado?’

‘I’m fast.’

‘ _Yā,_ that’s all you woodland elves ever talk about. So _big_ , so _strong,_ so—’

‘Annoyingly self-righteous?’ He Tian countered, arching a brow and trying to keep all but his lips motionless. If Jian Yi wanted to indulge in stereotypes, He Tian could parrot many things his father had insinuated about the high-elves of the South Kingdom. He’d hoped they were above it.

Pleasingly, Jian Yi ignored the comment, leaving the bait where it was. He glanced over He Tian’s shoulder at the Drow, and then back to He Tian. Jian Yi nodded. 

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Quickly.’

They held each other’s gazes, and both gripped the edges of the table—one of Jian Yi’s hands around his sorcerer’s staff—until their knuckles paled, mirroring each other’s stance of readiness.

‘After three?’ He Tian muttered. 

Jian Yi nodded. 

He Tian inhaled slowly. ‘One… Two… Thr—’

 _‘Wait!’_ Jian Yi whispered sharply. 

He Tian jerked to stillness. He stared as Jian Yi’s panicked gaze swept the table before them: the half-drunk carafe of iced tea, the unfinished platter of sweetmeats. After a moment’s hesitation, Jian Yi grabbed a sticky fistful of the sweetmeats and began to shovel them into the deep pockets of his robes.

‘What are you _doing?’_ He Tian hissed, resisting the urge to grip the cloth around Jian Yi’s throat and _yank._

Keening, Jian Yi replied, ‘For _later_.’

Outrage bubbled in the back of He Tian’s throat, and he grabbed Jian Yi by the arm. The sudden commotion was drawing the attention of other customers, and when He Tian glanced over, the Drow was staring at him, his sheening, beetle-like eyes narrowed. 

He Tian swore again, and Jian Yi steadied himself as He Tian let go of his arm. They shared a single look—then bolted as one towards the entrance of the _riad_. 

Someone shouted behind them as they ran, but neither paid it any heed. A dwarf rose from her table in the middle of the walkway, and He Tian swerved to avoid her, his hip catching a platter on the edge of her table. Several intricate dishes of pickles crashed to the ground, the clatter of metal and broken ceramic echoing through the serene courtyard, colourful preserves splattering to the flagstone.

A woman—the maitre’d?—made a cry of surprise, and He Tian threw two bronze coins into the air as he raced past her. He Tian was fast, but Jian Yi impressed him by keeping up, bunching his robes up around his pale knees, his staff tucked under an armpit. He Tian caught a flash of something falling from his pockets; there was the thud of a pastry hitting the ground. 

They hurtled through the archway at the building’s entrance and staggered out onto the street. The owners of the café had done away with the huge old double doors, removing them from their hinges and choosing to ward the café with magic at night. 

On the street, He Tian veered left, tearing down towards the waterfront, his sword jostling in the scabbard around his waist. He allowed a glance behind him and, with a touch of relief, caught sight of Jian Yi’s pale form following close. Further back, the Drow shuddered to a stop in the doorway of the café, head jerking side to side.

 _I can shield if you let me,_ came Meilín’s insistent voice. _Run._

‘Do it,’ He Tian ordered, breathing hard, his feet pounding the stones beneath him until they turned to hollow wood as he hit the boardwalk. The sun would be setting soon, the air taking on a brittle quality with the coastal wind, and the port was growing busy with passengers and the crew of ships that had returned to the docks before nightfall. 

He Tian could feel his lips moving without his control, foreign words forming harshly on his tongue. He let them. Ahead of him, a gull startled from a wooden pole and took to the skies, and He Tian persevered. He hadn’t run like this since Sengōng. He felt a pit of dread that this could be a weekly occurrence: running as if his life depended on it, with no real understanding of the danger chasing him not far behind. 

Eventually, when the boardwalk grew crowded and He Tian considered his cover to be sufficient, he ducked behind the hull of a large ship moored up beside the boardwalk; it was a luxury liner, something that took rich passengers around the Axle isles for a few days. Now, it was empty. 

_He has lost you,_ said Meilín, sounding certain—and surprised. _You listened to me._

He Tian had to laugh. He shook his head, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. 

‘When have you ever given me a choice?’

He Tian jolted in alarm before she could reply, as Jian Yi veered around the corner and almost crashed into him, before collapsing inelegantly onto the boardwalk beside him, all elbows and knees. Jian Yi was red-cheeked and panting. His head knocked against the ship’s hull at his back, and he blew air upwards, shifting the white-blond strands of hair away that had loosened from his pony tail and fallen into his face. 

‘Zhengxi’s…. going to _kill_ me.’

He Tian shook his head. ‘He doesn’t have to know.’

‘The Drow—’ 

‘He’s lost our trail. We’ll be gone by tonight.’

‘You’re…’ A shuddering breath. ‘—so sure… we’re safe?’

 _Am I?_ He Tian asked privately. 

_As well as I can make you within this body. The Drow are like weeds; it does no good to cut them unless you dig out the whole root._

Feeling grim and dogged at Meilín’s words, He Tian told Jian Yi, ‘Safe for now.’

Jian Yi nodded. He had composed himself, still breathing a little heavily, but he was calm enough that he could turn a narrowed gaze onto He Tian.

‘ _Na…_ Are you going to _tell_ me why a Drow is after you?’

He Tian smiled. ‘No.’

‘Come _on,_ ’ Jian Yi whined. ‘You owe me.’

He Tian narrowed his eyes, his smile vanishing. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned. ‘I owe you _nothing_. We could’ve walked out there and that whole café would’ve been none the wiser. Instead—’

‘I messed up,’ Jian Yi finished, sighing. ‘Yeah…’

Silence fell between them. Around them, the sounds of the port were loud: fishermen selling the day’s catch from the boats, passengers stepping noisily off gangplanks after a hot day at sea, faces flushed and bodies smelling of sweat and salt. Everywhere was the sound of creaking wood and the flapping of cotton sails. 

He Tian looked up. Gulls swarmed overhead, eager for scraps, their caws loud across the wind. Behind them, the sky was beginning to darken and He Tian’s skin prickled at the brush of hot wind. Across the sea, clouds were beginning to gather, rolling towards them like huge waves.

‘A storm,’ He Tian murmured. They’d been waiting for it for a week, its approach a warning in the hot air.

Jian Yi followed his gaze, and twisted to squint at the sky. ‘Would you look at that,’ he said. ‘Do you think we’ll still sail?’

‘We’d better.’

Jian Yi’s expression turned grim and he blew out a sigh. After a moment, he shoved a hand into his pocket, searching, and then withdrew it, palm open. 

‘Pastry?’ he offered.

He Tian turned to him—slowly.

What followed was a wet sound, like a stone being snatched and thrown into the harbour, the _plop_ of it striking the water and sinking to the bottom, and Jian Yi’s startled cry as the gulls swiftly followed.

*******

The wind was loud when they congregated later that evening in the tavern, busy with sailors and the smell of sea air and spilled mead. There were five of them in total, not including Peng Fei, who had yet to show himself. He Tian sat at a table with Zhengxi and Jian Yi, and quietly assessed the other two travellers. One was a half-orc woman whose head almost skimmed the wooden rafters when she stood, her shackled wrists clattering. If she tried, He Tian didn’t doubt she could’ve broken the metal with a quick snap—but the magic that held them must have been too strong.

She was prisoner to the Aasimar who sat stoically at her side, young and cherubic, her face brown-skinned and of discomfiting beauty. He Tian caught glimpses of white feathers in her silvery hair. He’d seen an Aasimar only once in his life; she’d been summoned to the palace to interrogate the assassin who had tried to kill his family and succeeded in killing his mother. The Aasimar lived in the perpetual pursuit of justice, driven by an innate moral compass that not even a paladin like Zhengxi could best. 

This creature looked like the one He Tian had seen as a child, the memory of the interrogation suffocatingly clear in his mind, but the Aasimar in the tavern was taller and fatter, and her nature of being planetouched was more keenly felt. Even without magic and sitting a table away from her, He Tian felt her otherness in the pit of his stomach almost like hunger. He found himself looking at her routinely, taking pains to draw away his gaze. 

He felt only a little guilt—Jian Yi and Zhengxi seemed to be experiencing the same pull, too, and they caught each others’ gazes with chagrin. 

‘What’s her story then?’ He Tian murmured to the pair, nodding his chin towards the half-orc. She was bigger than any other creature in the tavern, her arms corded with muscle and folded across her chest. A scar ran from the right corner of her mouth and up to her right eye, the disfigurement giving her the perpetual impression of a smirk. 

‘Not sure,’ said Jian Yi. ‘Must be something pretty bad if she’s being taken to Axle with an Aasimar.’

‘I know it,’ Zhengxi said quietly, but distinctly enough to be heard over the raucous chatter of the sailors. ‘I heard people talking in the markets earlier.’

They both turned to look at him, expectant. He Tian raised a brow.

‘Are we going to have to pull it from you?’

With a clearing of his throat, Zhengxi leaned forward, armour clinking as he rested his arms on the table. His voice was low. 

‘I heard she’s been arrested for piracy. Stealing from ships off the coast of Hàndì and Axle.’

‘Huh,’ Jian Yi said softly.

He Tian considered this. If this was true, it explained why she was heading towards Axle. Probably, her onward destination was Longdì, where she’d be put on trial before the dragons. International crimes required the attention of the highest court. 

‘Is she a danger?’ Jian Yi asked, not out of fear but curiosity.

‘Not with an Aasimar as her guard,’ He Tian said, amused. ‘She won’t be able to take a piss without the Aasimar watching.’ 

Jian Yi bobbed his head in agreement. ‘Plus she’ll have a dragonborn captain for the week.’

He Tian nodded, conceding.

‘I heard something else in the markets,’ said Zhengxi. They each had a tankard of dwarfish mead, strong enough to keep them awake for the evening until Peng Fei appeared, and Zhengxi lifted his tankard to his lips. Before he took a sip, he said, ‘Two elves were running through the town some time after noon with a Drow on their heels.’

He Tian and Jian Yi exchanged a look. From the bar behind them, a cheer rose up among a group of male human sailors getting steadily more drunk, short and stocky things, their skin leathery from a life of sun and wind. 

‘Do I need to know?’ Zhengxi asked pointedly. The question was for the both of them, but it was Jian Yi who answered. 

‘How do you know it was us?’

It was the wrong thing to say. Zhengxi’s nostrils flared. _‘Jian Yi.’_

Jian Yi wet his lips before making another attempt: ‘Do you… _want_ to know?’

‘It was nothing, paladin,’ He Tian intervened smoothly. ‘A misunderstanding.’

‘With a _Drow_?’ Zhengxi replied archly. 

‘They’re difficult creatures,’ He Tian said with a shrug. ‘Prone to miscommunication.’

Zhengxi narrowed his eyes, but said nothing more. Jian Yi was staring down into his tankard, his mead untouched. If he didn’t drink up soon, He Tian was going to drink it for him. 

The tavern had grown busier by now; every table was full, and the group of sailors at the bar had doubled in size since He Tian had first taken his seat. He looked around with heightened impatience. Where was Peng Fei? The captain was dragonborn; he would be unmissable in a crowd. Other than the Aasimar and half-orc, the rest of the tavern was a mix of human, elf, and dwarf, common races this side of the world.

 _Those humans are loud,_ Meilín muttered in the back of his head.

 _You’re getting old, Meilín,_ he thought. 

She sniffed. _Drink the mead,_ she said. _It will get us both through this evening._

He Tian tipped his head back until his tankard was empty, and set it down with a clank on the table. Jian Yi looked dejectedly down at his own. 

‘Too many sweetmeats?’ He Tian asked, wiping his hand against the back of his mouth. 

Jian Yi winced.

Another cheer exploded through the tavern. He Tian regretted drinking his mead, the noise grating at him. Their voices were boisterous and drunk and He Tian was growing impatient to get on the ship. He was already losing a night’s sleep, and he would catch none on board if Peng Fei chose to sail through the storm. Somewhere in Port Gangling, the Drow would be lurking, too.

Behind He Tian, one of the humans had started to make a speech, tankard raised high. It was at least the fifth toast that evening to some lost friend or ship or a lament for a Hàndì of the past before the orc wars ravaged their home. He Tian pulled a face at it. Humans and their sentiment. 

One of the men began to sing.

‘Oh, for—’ He Tian leaned back. ‘Could you keep it _down_?’ he called out in Common. ‘I don’t think the kraken heard you!’

At the bar, the group of sailors fell quiet and, as one, they turned to look at He Tian. One of them leered at him, the effect diluted only slightly from the thick red beard that covered his face.

With a choice gesture, the human shouted, ‘Guess we’d better talk _louder_ then, eh!’ 

A collective shout emerged from the group. Tankards slammed onto the bar; beer and mead spilled. The human who had spoken was still looking at He Tian with a sneer, watching for his answer. He Tian got to his feet. 

A goading sound rose from the men. Behind him, He Tian thought he heard Zhengxi sigh. 

He Tian was taller than the human. Indeed, he was at least a foot taller than the whole group of them. But there were at least eight or so humans, and only three of them. He couldn’t guarantee Zhengxi or Jian Yi’s help. Glancing back, he caught the Aasimar’s curious gaze set behind a set of thick dark lashes, and the smirk of the half-orc had turned into a beaming grin, ripe with eagerness. Her shackles jangled as she shifted in her seat. She inclined her head in He Tian’s direction.

 _Go on then,_ the gesture said. _We’re watching._

 _Are you eager to prove Jian Yi right about woodland elves?_ came Meilín’s voice, arched. _You are like the orcs—too ready for a fight._

Perhaps she was right, but the orcs were driven by bloodlust and chaos. He Tian only yearned for the movement, the familiar motions of his body moving in the fray. The Hes were not gifted with their strength for nothing.

‘I’ve missed a few training sessions by now,’ He Tian said under his breath in Elvish, rolling his shoulders. As he began unbuckling his sword and scabbard from his hip. He felt the tension in the air tighten. ‘I’ll take an opportunity where I can get it.’

_Fool. The whole of Gangling will come for a bar fight. Have you forgotten the Drow?_

The human’s eyes latched onto his sword, a hint of wariness in them that relaxed as He Tian let the scabbard thud to the table, then began walking in the man’s direction. Zhengxi put a hand on the scabbard, tugged it closer to him. 

He Tian kept his body at ease as he moved, entirely open, his gait almost amiable. No weapons. No magic. His blood was singing beneath his skin.

To Meilín he muttered, ‘Some Underscum wouldn’t come near this.’

She didn’t believe him. _I won’t aid you this time._

He Tian shrugged. ‘We’ll see about that. You need me.’

‘What’s that, pretty boy?’ the human demanded, neck craned to catch He Tian’s Elvish words. The man’s breath caught in his throat when he spoke, as if coming to realise quite how big He Tian was as he approached, and that he seemed to grow only bigger.

He Tian raised his eyebrows, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. ‘There’s an Aasimar over there and you’re calling _me_ the pretty one?’ He grinned, all teeth. He knew the effect wasn’t pretty at all. He continued moving forward, only a few paces from the human now. ‘I’m flattered.’

The man’s face twisted. ‘Aw’right, tree fucker,’ he sneered. ‘That _better?’_

‘It’ll do,’ said He Tian, and then he swung. 

*******

He still felt the crunch of bone beneath his hand when the humans rushed at him. There was a spurt of blood from the man’s broken nose, a spray of red striping across He Tian’s cheek, and they came at him as one. Shouts echoed chaotically around the bar. He heard the shriek of chair legs across the floor as others jumped in, eager for a brawl. 

‘Dong Yu!’ one of the men shouted, pulling back the redhead from He Tian’s second strike.

There were hands on He Tian’s shoulders, trying to grab at his neck. He twisted and jerked his elbow back, meeting bone and flesh and hearing a pained cry from behind him. The hands fell away; he’d met his mark. 

In front of him, Dong Yu was still reeling, brushing away his friend’s help. He was clutching at his nose, but his mouth had twisted into a grimace, teeth red and bloodied. He spat on the ground, a red globule that hit the stone not far from He Tian’s feet, and He Tian was ready when Dong Yu rushed at him. 

As he brought up his arms to block Dong Yu, someone jumped on his back. He staggered beneath the weight, trying to peel them off. They were an inconvenience at first, but then a forearm wrapped itself around his throat, pressing tight enough to cut off his air supply. 

He Tian snarled and twisted—catching sight of Jian Yi and Zhengxi in the crowd, batting away attackers like flies—but the grip at his neck was tight. Human sailors were small but surprisingly strong, used to grappling with sails and ropes double their weight, and He Tian had to protect his front from Dong Yu, who had taken to raining blows against He Tian’s face, chest, shoulders.

He Tian had no knife to reach for, but he hadn’t goaded the humans for the chance to kill. Now as he caught sight of Dong Yu’s short blade, heard the ring of metal sliding from a scabbard, he knew that the humans had no such qualms of turning this into a bloodbath. Moryo belonged to the elves, but it relied on humans for their trade. Gangling was human territory. 

_I told you I wouldn’t aid you,_ Meilín warned. 

He Tian gritted his teeth. Dong Yu’s arm rose, ready to strike, and He Tian heard Jian Yi shout his name—and then he spun. 

Dong Yu’s knife buried itself in the back of his friend. Both men cried out. The pressure on He Tian’s throat disappeared, and he heaved in a shuddering breath, rubbing at his neck. The assailant on his back had crumpled to the floor, and Dong Yu was staring now at the tip of the bloody dagger he had just pulled from his friend’s back. 

‘Call it off now while you can, Dong Yu,’ He Tian forewarned.

But his words were ignored, and Dong Yu’s lip curled in loathing as he stared at He Tian. Chaos was unfolding around them in the tavern. Another sailor had dragged the wounded man off to one side of the bar, away from the mêlée. Most were fighting because they could; Dong Yu looked at He Tian like this was personal, as if it were He Tian’s knife that had found its way in his friend’s back. 

‘You woodland scum,’ Dong Yu spat. ‘The orcs might have exiled us, but thank fuck it wasn’t by a fucking _butterboy_.’

He Tian pulled a face. ‘No, they just pillaged your homes and raped your people. But you’re right—at least they never looked down their _noses_ at a group of loudmouthed round-eared mudlings.’

Others around Dong Yu had heard the insults, breaking away from their own combatants and turning in He Tian’s direction, and He Tian braced himself for the new onslaught as bodies rushed towards him—and never came. To a human’s slower eyes, it would appear as if some invisible creature had swung a club that hurled each man across the room in turn until they crumpled against the wooden barrier of the tavern’s bar.

But He Tian’s senses enabled him to see it all as it truly was: like the wrenching pull of some unseeable hand, the point of a rogue dagger embedded itself in any scrap of cloth hanging loosely off the men’s bodies and, with a sudden yank, dragged them into and halfway the ledge of the bar, the knife impaling its point into the wooden surface. 

While they flailed, the dagger wiggled itself free and flung itself to the other side of the tavern, where the next victim stood gaping. In a matter of seconds, the horde were disoriented and bewildered, groaning against the bar or picking themselves off the floor.

He Tian watched in disbelief. ‘What the…’ 

Dong Yu was watching too, and the look on his face was comical as the same dagger caught itself in the hem of his linen shirt—and threw him to the bar.

When the knife loosened itself, there was no one left but He Tian—and the blade only whipped past him, close enough to skim the air beside He Tian’s pointed ear with a ringing sound in its wake. He had been spared, and he turned to see his saviour, a note of wry thanks on his lips.

He Tian’s words caught in his throat, and he went still. 

There, at the wall nearest the bar, the crowds giving him a wide berth as he sheathed his dagger, was Mo Guan Shan. 

More than two weeks had passed since their last meeting and a separating distance of three hundred miles. He Tian’s heart pummeled in his chest. Its beating had nothing to do with the fight or the charge of bloodlust in the air—or the storm that was nearly upon them outside. At the sight of him, it beat as it always had, painfully alive. 

His feet carried him across the room, and it was all He Tian could do not to touch him. 

_Your woodland boy,_ Meilín remarked with a particular tone. He Tian ignored her.

Guan Shan was scowling at him. ‘You can’t stay out of trouble for two fuckin’ weeks?’

‘Guan Shan,’ He Tian said, the name half-breath, half-laughter. ‘How—You’re _here_.’

 _How did you find me?_ he nearly asked—but he had written a letter, and Guan Shan was a skilled hunter. He looked well. A little tired, travel-weary, but he looked healthy. Just in case the precise sight He Tian had used to see the dagger was now failing him, he thought he should put his hands all over Guan Shan to verify this. 

‘Yeah,’ Guan Shan drawled. ‘To stop you gettin’ killed. But you seem to be doin’ a pretty good job of it yourself.’

‘Getting killed?’ He Tian asked, snorting. ‘No one’s after me but a few rowdy humans.’

 _And a Drow,_ Meilín reminded him archly.

Guan Shan looked over He Tian’s shoulder. ‘A few?’ he said, and He Tian turned to follow his gaze.

He swore. The sailors’ persistence was growing irritating; they were like ants, stamped out beneath his boot, still more coming from a nest beneath the floor. Jian Yi and Zhengxi were standing on a table, Zhengxi’s boot connecting with grabbing hands, Jian Yi’s lips murmuring fast with warding incantations. The end of his staff cracked against the table, and the ring of humans at their feet were pushed backwards by the force of an invisible wave.

Against an opposite wall, the Aasimar was watching the events unfold with a thin press of her lips and her arms folded across her chest, and the half-orc prisoner was laughing at her side, a great booming thing that reverberated through the tavern and seemed to shake the rafters.

The humans were growing closer, and He Tian moved to put Guan Shan behind him, ignoring his protest.

And then, as one, the humans stilled. 

At first He Tian assumed this was another of Guan Shan’s tricks, or a consequence of Jian Yi’s power, the men put under the sorcerer’s spell—but the sailors’ faces had twisted into mixed expressions of anger and chagrin. And fear.

In the open entrance to the tavern, through which rain had now started to fall hard onto the streets, stood a dragonborn. 

Peng Fei.

He towered over the occupants of the bar, easily matching the half-orc woman in height, and his red eyes were narrowed to vertical slits. Scales the colour of burnt orange covered his body, hidden mostly beneath a billowing long sailor’s coat and breeches. Rope-like scales parted from his head in the illusion of hair; Peng Fei had affixed gold cuffs around each thick strand. He Tian’s gaze hesitated on the huge boots he wore on his feet, steel-capped at the toe, larger than a human’s head. 

The humans that were in the bar had now left, rushing past Peng Fei like scolded dogs, heads low, carrying wounded comrades as if the bar were a battlefield where victory had not been won. All who remained were a few elves, including the bartender, who had begun righting tables and chairs and incautiously drinking the abandoned tankards of mead scattered about the tavern—and Peng Fei’s passengers. 

He assessed them. When he spoke, his voice was a low bass, gravelly and thickly accented, his words sibilant and falling hard on the consonants. ‘You lot are with me, I _sss-uppose_?’

‘After that?’ Jian Yi hopped down from the table, looking sheepish and tugging at his robes. ‘I’d get on your ship even if I wasn’t.’

The half-orc gave another booming laugh as she and the Aasimar gathered their bags and walked over to Peng Fei. ‘Funny elf,’ the half-orc rumbled admiringly, wagging a finger at Jian Yi, the shackles around her bound wrists clattering noisily. She made to nudge the Aasimar with her elbow in humoured camaraderie, but the celestial being stepped to one side, just out of reach. ‘Magic pixie is funny, no?’

Zhengxi, climbing down from the table with a judicious sense of care given the restrictions of his armour, rolled his eyes. He Tian noticed that Peng Fei was considering him carefully. The dragonborn made a sound like clearing his throat. 

‘You are the one who needs _passss_ …’ Another _ahch_ sound. ‘—passage to Axle?’

At this, He Tian looked at Guan Shan, whose presence at his side still seemed miraculous. Guan Shan’s gaze was moving between the half-orc, Aasimar, and dragonborn in growing fear—wonder, too. At times, He Tian forgot that Guan Shan had been to Gangling only once before. He had been young, and the trip was short; unlike He Tian’s privilege, he knew so little.

‘That’s right,’ He Tian told Peng Fei. ‘I have coin.’

‘I’d hope so, _maunthreki._ ’

‘You’re going to Axle?’ Guan Shan asked He Tian. Jian Yi and Zhengxi were looking at Guan Shan curiously, and He Tian pulled him to one side while Peng Fei collected each passenger’s coin. 

Guan Shan hadn’t sounded angry, but there was an ache in He Tian’s chest. Running—leaving him—had felt like a betrayal. He Tian had all but asked for his hand before he fled, and facing him now was like reaching around and pulling the knife from his back, as Dong Yu had done to his friend.

‘Guan Shan,’ he began quietly. ‘I never meant to—My father—’

‘I know.’

‘You know?’

‘About the Drow, about the marriage they’d arranged. Your brother told me—him and Qiu. They’re why I’m here.’

 _‘They_ sent _you_?’

Guan Shan stepped closer, his voice low and insistent. ‘He Tian, you’ve gotta get to Longdì. There are things the dragons have gotta know—more than just the arrangement. Your father’s told everyone you’re dead. There was a funeral last week. The whole kingdom’s been mournin’ for you.’ He looked around the tavern. ‘The news will get here soon.’

He Tian had gone cold. ‘Dead,’ he echoed flatly. ‘Why would he…’ 

_Because your father is a worse man than you wanted to admit,_ Meilín said quietly. He wanted to argue, but there was no reason to. What could He Tian do but agree with her? He Tian swallowed with difficulty. If he’d stayed and refused the marriage, what would’ve happened then? Would his father have killed him with his own hand? Paid off some assassin to strike him down during training—to suffocate him in his own chambers, only a few rooms away from He Cheng? The possibility of it ran through He Tian’s head so vividly that nausea pooled in the base of his throat.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, and the admittal wrenched at his insides. The adrenaline from the fight had dissipated, and his mood darkened. With bitterness, he asked, ‘Would I have shamed him so greatly? Did he lose so much fucking face when he realised I wouldn’t play in his games with the Drow?’

Guan Shan’s expression softened in a rare moment of sympathy. He said, ‘I’ll tell you everythin’ on the ship.’ 

He Tian began to grin. ‘You’re coming with me.’

Guan Shan rolled his eyes, pushing He Tian gently aside. The touch alone thrilled He Tian, and he let himself be moved. Peng Fei was approaching the woodland pair, and Guan Shan pulled out a coin pouch holding enough gold to make He Tian choke. 

Guan Shan raised his chin at the dragonborn. ‘If you take me too, I’ll pay double.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday! This is for the lovely Emma [@plumb19](http://plumb19.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.
> 
> Many thanks go to Viv and Andy for their invaluable feedback on this work!

There were two cabins on the ship—one was a long, narrow hall that stretched into darkness, weakly lit by portholes and decorated on either side with hammocks suspended from the low ceilings. It smelled of sea water, creosote and stale sweat. The other, which they passed on their way down to the hold, was a small cabin with a bed that touched each wall and smelled of perfume. The females could have it, if they liked. 

‘We do not,’ the Aasimar told Peng Fei, assessing the hallowed darkness of the hold with the rest of them, while Guan Shan and He Tian stood off to one side and the high elves to another, each partitioned off in their groups. ‘We will stay with everyone else.’

He Tian thought it was a reasonable way of saying that her prisoner would crush her in her sleep were they to share a bed no wider than the half-orc’s chest. The Hes were an uncommonly large race of male woodland elves; he found himself a little fascinated to be bested by a woman.

 _‘Sss—suit_ yourself,’ Peng Fei told her. ‘ _Ahch.’_

‘Hammock or bed,’ tutted the half-orc, who had announced on the gangplank that she called herself Shaov inOrcish and Li Shuang in Common. She rested the weight of her arms against a hammock, testing. ‘Is all for _little_ people. I take floor.’ 

Peng Fei frowned. ‘The hammock moves with the ship,’ he said gruffly. ‘You won’t want the floor unlessss— _unless_ you tie yourself down. We are going into a storm.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Li Shuang in a mangled approximation of Peng Fei’s accent, and sat herself on the hammock. 

The sound was like two ships colliding. 

The hammock cannoned to the floor—and Li Shuang with it. The two posts supporting the hammock had splintered; the cloth had ripped. She roared with laughter as she picked herself off the floor and attempted to brush herself down with her shackled hands. Jian Yi’s snorting laughter was smothered in Zhengxi’s shoulder.

‘That has never happened before,’ said Peng Fei, the dragonborn standing dumbly before them as they took stock of their lodgings for the week’s journey. 

‘I will take floor,’ said Li Shuang, after remarking that he had probably never had someone like her on his ship before. Up close, He Tian could see that her grey-green skin was smothered in tattoos and the purple hair above her right temple was shorn to her skull.

‘Hm,’ said Peng Fei, before disappearing to the deck. 

Above deck, the boom of thunder threatened the skies, the loud smack of sails getting caught in the wind as Peng Fei’s crew ran across the deck to steer their ship out of Gangling’s port. Unease sat in the pit of He Tian’s stomach and he knew they all felt it. This was no time to be sailing. 

‘I have _sss—sailed_ worse,’ Peng Fei told them earlier as they boarded the ship. It was a small, narrow vessel that was well-cared-for, travelled fast, and cut easily through troubled seas. It wasn’t a luxury liner like some He Tian had seen anchored in the port—the Nightjar was built for speed. 

_Worse?_ He Tian had thought, meeting Guan Shan’s gaze. They both looked heavenward to the skies before following Peng Fei below deck, the rolling clouds darkening by the second, the wind hot on their skin. 

They looked about the space now, listening to the crew shouting as the anchor was drawn up, the chain making the whole ship shudder, and boots pounded on the deck above, their shadows darting through the gaps in the boards. 

Li Shuang now leant against a pole, grinning fiercely at the wreckage, eyes flitting routinely to her prison warden. The Aasimar had her eyes closed, seated cross-legged on her hammock. She had no belongings, only the clothes on her back and a small, prism-shaped box that fit into her palm. She made no mention of it—indeed, she said little, and no one appeared confident enough to inquire.

 _I don’t like it,_ Meilín murmured. He Tian could feel the pull of her attention on the box. _It feels off._

He Tian snorted. _She’s an Aasimar,_ he thought. _Her whole being is off._

Meilín had no chance to reply; Guan Shan was tugging He Tian to one end of the hold, where a single cannon was fixed tightly to the surrounding beams and barrels had been stacked against the wall. The beams were lower here, and He Tian had to bow his neck to stand. He didn’t mind; his lips almost brushed Guan Shan’s ear.

‘I’ve missed you,’ He Tian murmured, curling his fingers around Guan Shan’s wrist. He noticed how Guan Shan’s skin had turned coppery from a week’s ride south in the early summer sun.

‘You’re not fucking me here,’ Guan Shan said. 

He Tian lifted his brows, smiling. ‘Didn’t you hear the captain? There’s another room on this ship. It’s _empty_.’

‘Lemme put it this way,’ said Guan Shan, a hand on He Tian’s chest. ‘You’re not fuckin’ me here while your father’s gettin’ ready to destroy the North Kingdom.’

He Tian’s smile fell. Guan Shan was serious. There was no exaggeration; Guan Shan was here to give him a morsel of truth that He Tian was going to find difficult to swallow. 

‘Destroy,’ He Tian said evenly. His tone was one that said, _Tell me everything—no frills._ Not that Guan Shan ever had a penchant for embellishment.

‘The contract was some kinda ruse,’ Guan Shan told him, keeping his voice low. Behind him, Jian Yi was gingerly testing his weight on his claimed hammock and looked ready to use it as a swing. Zhengxi had taken the hammock opposite and was steadily unclipping his armour, his and Jian Yi’s satchels fastened to a post beneath the hammock to stop them rolling through the hold with the waves. Guan Shan continued: ‘Your brother said it was somethin’ to do with the magic around the mountain—the Drow king wants it and so does your father. They’re gonna work together to get it.’

He Tian’s gaze dropped, understanding. ‘He wanted to form an alliance through the marriage,’ he murmured. ‘Together, they could break the wards and harness the magic.’

His father had money and power and the resources to build an army of sorcerers to bring down the wards. Only the Drow would concede to lend their magic to such a feat. 

‘I guess the marriage was a way of provin’ he wouldn’t go back on his word.’

He Tian shook his head. He could feel the ship moving faster now, the waves growing choppier as they moved out to sea. Peng Fei’s guttural words thundered above deck to his crew. He Tian gripped a beam above him to steady himself, the other hand pressed to Guan Shan’s waist, a firm anchor to stop Guan Shan falling.

‘He has always wanted more,’ He Tian said. ‘I was naive to think I wouldn’t be used to help him get it.’

Guan Shan winced. ‘It’s why you’ve gotta get to Longdì. Tell the dragons what he and the Drow are plannin’. If the Drow or your father breaks the wards…’

He left the sentence unfinished, but He Tian didn’t need to imagine what might happen if that were the case. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the Drow accessing the mountain’s power, who knew only how to use their magic in the darkness—or his father, who had yearned for it for close to a millennium. 

Unease washed over him. 

Quietly, he told Guan Shan, ‘There was a Drow—in Gangling. I think he saw me.’

‘Your father sent him,’ Guan Shan replied grimly. His skin had started to take on a strange hue, and he closed his eyes briefly as the ship rode another, larger wave. He swallowed then said, ‘Your brother said they were meant to bring you back to Sengong, ‘cause your father couldn’t be trusted to get you back himself.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ He Tian muttered. ‘If they want me back alive, then why would my father tell the kingdom that I’m dead?’

Guan Shan met his gaze. ‘Still tryin’ to figure that one out, too.’

They shared a long look, and Guan Shan did not push him away this time when He Tian lowered his head to meet his lips with Guan Shan’s. There was no passion in the kiss; it was as chaste as a parent might press to the brow of a child, and He Tian found the reassurance he was looking for, warmth spreading in his chest. In this, he was not alone.

A whistle rang out from the other end of the hull. 

He Tian looked over to see Jian Yi grinning at them impishly, swinging his legs over the side of the hammock. Zhengxi reached over to smack him lightly on the arm, and He Tian and Guan Shan awarded him with matching gestures with their fingers.

‘Who is that guy?’ Guan Shan muttered. 

He Tian snorted. ‘Who knows. He says he’s getting some kind of text from Longdì.’ 

‘You believe him?’

‘Probably about as much as his paladin believes I’m _not_ the Prince of the North Kingdom.’

‘Which is not fuckin’ much?’

He Tian considered the paladin from a distance. ‘It shouldn’t be an issue. He’s loyal.’

‘Yeah, not to you,’ Guan Shan reminded him.

‘No,’ He Tian conceded steadily, ‘but you are.’

Guan Shan pushed him away, not ungently—but then his grip on He Tian’s arm grew tight as the ship rolled through another wave, and He Tian’s hand shot up to grab the beam overhead, their feet unsteady. The waves were growing bigger. At the end of the hall, the Aasimar had cracked open one eye. 

‘Shit,’ Guan Shan muttered weakly, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. 

He Tian looked at him closely. He realised now why Guan Shan looked so pale—he was seasick. 

‘You’ve never been on a boat before,’ He Tian said, feeling a warped sense of excitement about the prospect. He would have to keep Guan Shan close. 

‘Fuck off,’ Guan Shan told him, scowling, the effect ruined by the wobble of his mouth and repeated swallowing to stave off his nausea. ‘You know this.’

It was no surprise really—elves were not made for the water. The seas were human territory more than anything—they were short, stocky creatures who swam strongly and could set themselves steady on a rocking ship. A lithe hunter like Guan Shan, who knew how to work with metal and keep the earth beneath his feet and the trees at his back, could not. 

Another wave—water smacked against the side of the hull; the wooden masts groaned above deck as the sails were battered by the rough winds. The whole ship shuddered—lurched. There was the sound of breaking glass, something rolling loose overhead, and a great boom as the ship crashed back down over the waves. 

He Tian grimaced. The Aasimar was on her feet now, holding a wooden pillar, and even her prisoner no longer looked so amused. 

A set of boots thumped rapidly on the steps leading to the deck above them, and Peng Fei’s scaled face appeared on the staircase. Rain and seawater ran off his coat and the ropey strands of his hair like a stream. 

‘You will want to hold on tight!’ he warned in a cavernous voice. ‘This will be a bumpy ride!’

‘For how long?’ Jian Yi asked fretfully. ‘It’s a _week_ to Axle!’

‘Until we have outrun the _ssstorm_!’

He left before anyone could ask anything more, and Jian Yi looked around at the rest of the passengers. To no one in particular, he asked, ‘Should we help him?’

‘No,’ Zhengxi replied firmly, voice loud. ‘We’ll be no use to them. They know what they’re doing.’

The ship tilted. The barrels at He Tian’s back had begun to creak, and Li Shuang swore loudly and colourfully in Orcish. The Aasimar was staring at her prisoner’s shackles. 

‘I know what you thinking, little one!’ Li Shuang called to her, grinning. ‘But is no matter—shackles or no, I cannot swim!’ Her laughter boomed out with the thunder overhead, coloured with morbidity. Guan Shan cursed. 

‘This was a bad fuckin’ idea,’ he muttered, almost a moan. ‘I wanna get off.’

‘No luck, sweetheart,’ He Tian told him, gripping him tighter. He realised his thighs were beginning to tremble from keeping them both steady and standing steady this long. They were riding through the storm, not with it. He Tian wasn’t a sailor; he had only been on a ship a handful of times in the past century, but he knew this: there was no outrunning a storm. 

He didn’t tell Guan Shan this.

 _Can’t you do something?_ He Tian asked Meilín. 

_Like what?_ she asked derisively. _Control a storm? Carry the ship to shore?_

 _Anything,_ He Tian replied. Guan Shan looked ready to faint or vomit—or both. 

Meilín snorted. _Not in this body, I can’t,_ she told him. _I can… try to ease his sickness. But we are in this mess together, you and I._

 _Do it,_ He Tian said. 

There was a pause, and He Tian knew what was coming. _You should know this first,_ she said. _If this ship wrecks—I cannot save you both. I might be able to force your body to shore, but not his, too._

_You say that like you could save him._

_I would need a body—wholly. Not this half-occupancy._

He Tian’s lip curled. Guan Shan had pressed his forehead to He Tian’s shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut tight. He Tian recalled this open weakness in him only a handful of times before—decades ago, when his father showed no sign of returning and He Tian had taken to occupying Guan Shan’s bed at night. They’d been young, and He Tian had wanted nothing but to offer his own warmth.

 _You can’t have him,_ He Tian told her.

_But I could have you._

He Tian didn’t hesitate. _Do it._

 _So sure,_ Meilín said, sounding a little surprised.

_According to my homeland, I’m already dead._

Meilín didn’t reply, and He Tian stood still as he felt his skin tingle, a thousand tiny needles pressing just beneath the surface. It lasted only a few moments until Guan Shan lifted his head and blinked. He breathed out shallowly, shaking his head.

‘I think it’s passed,’ he said. Then he frowned, leaning in close to peer up at He Tian’s face. ‘He Tian, your eyes…’

He Tian pulled back slightly. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I dunno. They’re all… dark.’

He Tian only chuckled. ‘We’re in the hull of a ship. It’s the lighting.’

‘Maybe,’ said Guan Shan, still frowning. After a moment he shrugged, and let He Tian pull him close while the ship heaved beneath their feet. 

*******

They moved to the top deck after an hour of riding through the storm. The conditions worsened and Guan Shan’s nausea came and went. Meilín helped to ease it each time. After an hour, the thunder clapped deafeningly above them and there was nothing to do but cling to the hold’s wooden posts while the ship broke through the waves. Jian Yi had abandoned his hammock and Zhengxi was pulling his armour back on. 

‘No swimming in that,’ Li Shuang told him. ‘You sink like rock.’

‘I can’t leave it,’ Zhengxi told her evenly while he tightened the straps of his breastplate, unperturbed by the lecture from a shackled, half-orc pirate. ‘I’m a Paladin. My armour is a part of who I am.’

Li Shuang tutted at him. ‘That part kill you,’ she warned. Her gaze slid to the Aasimar, who had one long arm looped around a post, the other extended to hold her strange-looking box. Li Shuang said, ‘I leave my things when I become prisoner.’

‘What kind of things?’ Zhengxi asked.

‘I have battle-axe. _Sapat._ Split man in half like tree. Was _sapat_ of my grandmoavhas.’

‘A strong woman?’ Jian Yi asked her, clinging to a beam, his blond hair swinging in its ponytail as the ship tilted. ‘Your grandmother?’

‘Strongest,’ Li Shuang said proudly. ‘We call her Elfkiller Groma.’

Jian Yi smiled tightly. ‘Wonderful.’

He Tian snorted. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m glad we’re getting to know each other, but if this ship flips, we’ll be drowning together soon, too.’

Then the ship lurched. 

Everyone snatched for something to hold on to—a beam, a wooden post, each other. Barrels rolled and the cannon groaned against its constraints. Out the corner of his eye, He Tian saw Guan Shan squeeze his eyes shut tightly. The Aasimar was muttering something to her gods; Li Shuang’s Orcish curses were loud and colourful and left little to the imagination. If the ship listed any further it would capsize.

How long would they have before the hold flooded with water? He Tian grimaced. If he was going to drown he’d have himself caught in the open seas—not trapped in a sinking coffin. 

_Don’t be pessimistic,_ Meilín said. _I told you I would save you._

He Tian replied, _Not much about what you’ve promised would be considered ‘saving’, Meilín._

‘We should hurry,’ Jian Yi said when the ship steadied itself again, ‘before the next wave hits.’

They were spurred on: Zhengxi tightened the rest of his armour, shouldering his and Jian Yi’s packs, and He Tian led the way quickly to the stairs with Guan Shan’s hand in his. Peng Fei hadn’t reappeared in the last hour, but they could all hear his gravelled shouts battling with the winds and the rain. He Tian saw Peng Fei at the captain’s wheel as he came out onto the deck. The rain soaked him immediately and his boots were slick against the flooded deck; the downpour bruised his skin and the winds threatened to tear at his clothes. 

Peng Fei’s scaled face twisted as he saw his passengers emerge from below deck. 

_‘Get back below!’_ he roared. _‘You’ll all go overboard!’_

‘This ship is going to capsize!’ He Tian shouted back. ‘We’ll be stuck down there!’

Peng Fei swore loudly in Draconic, but he couldn’t argue. They weren’t safe anywhere on this ship. He Tian was glad to be far from the Drow who’d chased him at port, but not for this. Guan Shan’s hand squeezed his tightly. His skin was ashen, and He Tian brushed a thumb insistently across his knuckles.

 _I’m sorry you followed me here,_ he wanted to say, his thoughts darkening. They weren’t on land—there was nowhere to run; nowhere he could take Guan Shan to safety. _I’m sorry you came to help me only to have me die._

 _‘Whaav avhe skator iuk avhaav!’_ the half-orc cried, clutching at the ship’s railings to He Tian’s right. He Tian’s gaze followed where she was pointing. Dread pooled in his stomach.

‘Oh, fuck,’ Guan Shan muttered beside him, close enough for He Tian to catch. 

Jian Yi gaped, blond hair plastered to his face by the pelting rain. ‘Is that…?’

The tentacles were only visible as the ship crested another wave, lifting them upwards so they could see down on the huge creature that lurked beneath the blackened seas, ready to feast on a ship capsized by a storm—or pull it apart itself. A bolt of lighting shattered the skies around them and for a moment the sea was lit up, illuminating the creature wrapping itself around the ship.

 _‘KRAKEN!’_ Peng Fei roared.

As one, crew and passengers sprinted across to starboard, expressions of dread and horror mirrored in their faces. The Aasimar’s mutterings had grown louder now, almost chanting. He Tian started at her. The box in her hand seemed to be glowing.

A deep, mournful sound shook the ship’s floorboards, its echo bruising He Tian’s eardrums. A hunting call. 

‘It doesn’t come to the Baolan Sea!’ one of Peng Fei’s crew cried out. 

‘It does now!’ Peng Fei shouted back.

 _It’s her,_ Meilín said. Her voice was eerily quiet in He Tian’s head. Around him was chaos; he latched onto Meilín’s calmness as if it were the eye of the storm. _She is drawing the kraken here. The storm, too, I suspect._

‘Impossible,’ He Tian spat. 

Guan Shan turned to him, looking at him strangely, and He Tian shook his head. 

_Not if that box is harnessing dark magic,_ Meilín replied. _You must get a hold of that box—it will kill you all._

He Tian swore under his breath and turned to Guan Shan. ‘We have to get the Aasimar’s box!’ he shouted as the kraken called louder, its cry soaking the air. _‘She’s bringing the kraken to us!’_

Guan Shan’s eyes widened and he cried, ‘How the fuck d’you know _that_! _’_

‘It’s _obvious,_ isn’t it!’

 _‘He Tian!’_ Guan Shan shouted back angrily.

He Tian raked a hand frustratedly through his wet hair. ‘Sweetheart, just— _trust me!’_

A moment passed between them while Guan Shan considered the plea—and then Guan Shan nodded firmly. 

_‘Fine.’_

The Aasimar was standing against the railing, near the door from where they’d just emerged. Ahead of the ship, another wave was about to hit them, a blackish mass of water on the horizon. Guan Shan looked upon it with dread.

 _I will keep you steady,_ Meilín told He Tian. He thanked her silently. 

‘As soon as it crests!’ he shouted to Guan Shan. ‘I’ll take her out—you get the box!’

They watched the wave grow, tall as some of the trees in the woods that bordered Sengong, high enough that they had to crane their necks to see the peak. He Tian counted down silently as it grew and grew, and his pulse thudded in his ears. 

‘Everyone hold on!’ Peng Fei shouted, grappling with the captain’s wheel.

The wave began to fall. 

_‘Now!’_

He Tian and Guan Shan shot forward as one. The Aasimar was muttering, her eyes on the building wave. She didn’t see them until they were a few paces from her. He Tian’s feet skidded against the slick planks and Guan Shan had a hand reached out, ready to grab for the box—

The Aasimar shot out a hand. 

A pulse of magic hit He Tian square in the chest. He flew into the air and crashed onto the middle of the ship’s deck like a gutted fish. The back of his skull rebounded against the wooden planks, pain shooting through his head, and he looked up in time only to see the Aasimar’s hand wrapped around Guan Shan’s throat, his feet dangling inches off the ground.

 _‘No!’_ He Tian cried.

The wave crashed.

There was water everywhere—in his eyes, his lungs, his ears. He Tian tried to breathe and couldn’t. This was nothing like Meilín’s threatening tricks. This was real, salt water drowning him as the whole ship became submerged from the mountain of water. He could feel himself lifted off the decking, carried along by the movement of the waves, scrabbling for purchase on something—anything—but there was nothing. He didn’t know if he was on the ship anymore or if he’d been dragged overboard. 

_Meilín!_ he pleaded, but there was no answer. 

Had she left him? Had she planned this?

He tried to open his eyes, but there was only darkness and the saltwater burned. Where was Guan Shan? Was he safe? 

_Please,_ he thought. _Please just let him be safe._

Something else struck him, catching him bruisingly on his hip, and then his head broke water. He choked on it, desperately trying to pull in air as he heard shouting. His eyes burned too much to open. He tried to hold himself still, but the pull of the water was a torment that thrashed around him, a riptide he was helpless against. 

_‘He Tian!’_

Water lodged in his throat as he tried to shout out. Guan Shan was calling for him, and he was near.

 _I’m here!_ he wanted to shout. _I’m right here!_

But it was no use. He spun wildly in the water, tried to listen for the sound of Guan Shan’s voice again. And then, all around him, a slithering sound, something wet sliding against a wall, and a groan like a whole forest crying out in pain.

 _‘EVERYONE JUMP!’_ Peng Fei shouted into the wind. Barely audible, he added: ‘There’s nothing for her now!’

He Tian’s sight was returning to him, patchy and sore when he blinked. He had no idea how long he had before another wave came, before the current dragged him under again. He was still within the boundaries of the ship, the whole thing flooded, half of it lifted upwards so that it stood almost vertically in the sea. Tentacles had wrapped themselves around the whole hull, and He Tian understood now what the groaning was: the kraken was going to crush the Nightjar between its limbs, and the rest of them with it. 

He saw the crew jumping off the sides and into the water, arms flailing as they shot into the turbulent seas, heads disappearing beneath the waves, and Zhengxi and Jian Yi with them. There was no sign of the Aasimar or Li Shuang—or Guan Shan. Peng Fei clung to the captain’s wheel at the ship’s helm, pressing all his weight against it to stay standing. The dragonborn was going to go down with his ship. 

He Tian thrashed as the ship began to crack, huge chunks of wood imploding beneath the crushing pressure of the kraken’s grip, shooting into the air before puncturing the waves. He Tian tried to swim sideways, fighting against the water that caught him in its lull—

There was a loud splash and pain burst in his side. He looked down with a shout of pain, white-hot agony bursting beneath his ribs. A chunk of wood jutted out of the water before him, the splintered end of it pierced his side. Red bloomed around him. 

More wood flew into the air, and He Tian could do nothing but let the next huge wave barrel into him and let himself be taken with its current. Beneath the water, he felt himself sinking, felt the strange sensation of something tugging at him, felt the pain in his side ebb to a sharp ache, and there there was nothing. 

The last thing he heard was a dragon’s roar like a voice ripping itself apart, painful and plangent, and it sounded like singing. 

*******

The palace was quiet that late at night, but He Cheng and Commander Qiu were no strangers to navigating empty hallways and darkened alcoves. Their relationship was privately ordained, not publicly flouted; their wives knew of the affair, and He Cheng and Qiu knew of theirs. 

They knew, too, when the guards changed their shifts and when the servants navigated the halls. They made use of those moments well, in advance of long nights spent in each other’s beds and longer nights discussing usurpation.

At present, their _coup d’etat_ existed within their heads and the four walls of Commander Qiu’s outhouse, a stout wooden structure set between the barracks and the main palace. It was sparsely furnished but had two floors and a servant’s room—and there would be no ears at doors as there might be outside He Cheng’s. 

Still, they kept their voices low. 

‘I’ve begun a list,’ said He Cheng. Qiu’s wife was elsewhere for the evening with her handmaiden, and the two men traded scraps of parchment like love letters across the small kitchen table. 

‘A bit premature, isn’t it?’ Qiu asked, considering the parchment He Cheng slid across to him. Beneath the light of a tall candle standing between them, he examined the names on the list, separated by a neatly drawn margin. To a thief, they were only names. 

He tapped the list on the left. ‘Some of their children train in the barracks.’

‘I know,’ He Cheng replied.

‘They’re decent fighters.’

‘I know.’

Qiu shook his head.

Some of the names surprised him but mostly it was as he’d assumed. He knew the loyalists—to the emperor and to He Cheng. He knew the opportunists; those who had put their noses to the air and smelled a whiff of change on the spring breeze. For the first time in a millenia, there was the possibility for a difference. He Cheng was not going to let it pass.

‘It will happen quickly once word gets out that He Tian is alive,’ said He Cheng.

Qiu dragged a hand across his mouth. ‘You want me to approach them? ’

‘Not now, but soon.’ He Cheng’s eyes fell to the paper in Qiu’s hands. His voice took on a warning note. ‘We have to be careful—bide our time. One wrong move and this will be thwarted. I’ll be beheaded by morning if we test the waters too soon.’ 

Qiu grimaced. He Cheng should have had the good fortune of expecting a long life and an ascension to the throne, but having Emperor He for a father and a ruler forced He Cheng to tread a careful existential line. He Tian had been testament to it, and He Cheng didn’t have the power to challenge it--not yet. The possibility that the emperor might gut his own heir should he decide to played on Qiu’s mind darkly, a forest set to fire during the summer and left blackened and barren. 

‘I’ll keep my eye on their children,’ Qiu said eventually. Then he asked, ‘Do we even _have_ time?’

‘If things are going as they should, we’ll have some.' He Cheng considered the unopened bottle between them, seeming to hold himself back. ‘If we wait until there’s news from Longdì, we could be too late. If we act now without proper support…’ He inclined his head just slightly. ‘Both parties will descend on us like a plague.’

‘Do you think we’ll succeed?’ Qiu replied, eyebrows raised. 

He Cheng’s mouth was hard-pressed and grim. ‘They’ve got to be,’ he said, demeanour made stern with burden. ‘We can accept nothing less.’

He Cheng’s optimism was rare. He considered circumstances with an evenly judged mind that, to some, rang of defeatism. But that wasn’t true—he didn’t take the risk of thwarted expectations. He would make a good ruler should his father ever let him. No risk, no needless loss of life. No games.

Qiu considered his lover across the table. The candlelight softened some lines on He Cheng’s face and made others severe that Qiu wished to soften. He Cheng had aged only a little since Qiu had first known him. Qiu grew with him, had the privilege of permanence; he couldn’t notice a change in He Cheng when he was always at his side, and the art of loving him blinded him to the new lines, the boulder-like hardenings where he had once been cut like a sharp stone.

Qiu offered him a smile. ‘He’ll have Mo Guan Shan. Knowing them, they’ll be with the Council soon. Banqueting—fucking.’

‘Must you?’ He Cheng asked sourly.

Qiu chuckled. ‘They could return to Sengōng within a couple of weeks.’

He Cheng sighed, reaching for the unopened bottle of gooseberry wine they had an evening to share. It opened with a _pop_ , and sharp-sweet redolence milled in the air. He Cheng poured stout cups for them each and drank his deeply. 

‘Maybe,’ he said eventually, then considered the rest of the bottle. ‘Or they’ll be dead.’

*******

‘He’s comin’ to.’

‘Thank the stars.’

‘Is about time! Big _parar_ sleep like baby for too long!’

‘He was fuckin’ _stabbed_ , orc.’

‘But he did not die, no? Wakey-wakey, _parar_. Now he can row.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be walking for a while,’ He Tian groaned, ‘let alone rowing.’

Jian Yi made a strangled whoop of laughter as He Tian’s eyes cracked open. The blue sky above him pierced his retinas, and the small paddle boat he was on rocked with motion as he tried to sit up. Around him, the waters were calm, the skies near-cloudless. A light breeze washed over his skin. 

‘What the hell happened?’ he muttered, shaking his head. The passengers of the Nightjar were crammed close together on the small boat, Li Shuang seated on a wooden plank that would’ve fit three narrow-shouldered elves like Jian Yi, who was peering at him closely. 

The high-elf had abandoned his long, layered robes beneath the hot sun, now wearing only a thin shirt and a pair of cotton braies, and a piece of cloth wrapped around his head to stop his porcelain skin burning. Zhengxi still wore his armour.

He Tian was lying along the middle of the boat, taking up what little room they had left, and his head rested in Guan Shan’s lap, cradled against a nacksap that had been placed between Guan Shan’s thighs like a pillow. He Tian had been stripped from the waist up, and there was a length of cloth wrapped around his hips, knotted over another pack of cloth at his abdomen. It looked clean, felt tender even while he lay still. His shirt lay crumpled off to one side, his sword weighing it down. 

Guan Shan’s russet gaze stared down at him, his mouth pressed into a taut line of worry and perpetual anger. 

He looked the same as when they had left Gangling: a green, fastened leather vest capped at the shoulders, his legs clad in leather breeches that would be heating his skin beneath the sun. His long auburn hair had been tied up to expose his nape and throat, and He Tian’s eyes followed the bead of sweat that slid from his temple, across his cheekbones, below the sharp precipice of his jaw and down the side of his artery, pooling somewhere around his collarbones.

He Tian’s eyes flicked up. Past Guan Shan, the Aasimar perched precariously on the narrow tip of the paddleboat, knees drawn up beneath her, the boat barely dipping beneath her, affecting a weightlessness that He Tian found unsettling. He narrowed his eyes. 

_‘You.’_

‘It was the Drow, not her,’ Guan Shan told him quickly and quietly, pressing a firm hand to He Tian’s shoulder. His brow was furrowed in concern, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days. He Tian didn't want to think about how long he’d been unconscious—his throat still felt sore and scratched from saltwater, as if someone had taken sandpaper to it. 

‘They’d given her somethin’,’ Guan Shan continued in a murmur. ‘Made her take the box. Some kind of compulsion. They were sent to kill you, He Tian.’

‘I never intended to hurt you,’ the Aasimar said softly. ‘Any of you.’

‘You nearly _killed_ us all.’

‘I was weak,’ she replied. ‘The Drow approached me before we sailed—I did not think to defend myself against such a dark compulsion and the box drew chaos to itself.’ She wet her lips, pausing. Carefully, she said, ‘I must deliver the half-orc Shaov to the dragons for sentencing. After that time… you may judge me as you see fit.’

He Tian stared at her, then looked back up at Guan Shan. Her punishment for his almost-death seemed irrelevant now. There were bigger questions to ask, like: ‘How the fuck are we all alive?’

‘There was a rowboat on the ship’s deck,’ Zhengxi spoke up. ‘It survived the storm—Nijena saved us.’

The Aasimar, Nijena, ducked her head in a placitude. He Tian wondered at what point during his almost-death had they exchanged pleasantries. 

‘When the wave hit, I lost the orb that the Drow had me use,’ said Njiena. ‘It must now lie at the bottom of the sea—or in the kraken’s belly. Jian Yi and I used our powers to propel the boat away from the ship, and your—Mo Guan Shan pulled you onto it.’

‘It’s been three days,’ Guan Shan muttered. ‘I’ve had to watch ‘em all take a shit.’

He Tian snickered at his discomfort, but his mind hinged on Nijena’s words. _Mo Guan Shan pulled you onto it_. Guan Shan had come here to help him—to save him. Already Guan Shan had kept him from drowning, kept his head above the water in stormy seas. He Tian considered this with a heady mix of fear and gratitude. He reached for the hand Guan Shan had rested on his shoulder and squeezed tightly. Then he looked at Li Shuang, whose huge biceps trembled with each pull of the oars. Sweat dampened the shorn strands of her hair and layered her grey-green skin. She was unshackled. 

‘You’ve been rowing three _days_?’

‘Almost four.’ Li Shuang puffed her chest out in pride. ‘I was captain of big ship off Hàndì.’ The small boat made her seem even bigger, the stillness of the seas around them making her voice even louder. She clicked her tongue and patted the hollow-sounding side of the paddleboat. ‘Little boat is like toy.’

‘We’ve taken turns forcing a wind to push us,’ Jian Yi said. ‘And I know a spell for making saltwater potable.’

‘Zhengxi’s been rationin’ the food he brought on the Nightjar,’ Guan Shan told He Tian. ‘Three guesses who gets the biggest portion.’

Li Shuang snorted. ‘I eat little, I eat you.’

 _‘Hey.’_ He Tian started to pitch forward—his abdomen smarting in a twist of pain at the motion—but Nijena’s warning made his own unnecessary. 

‘Orc,’ she said quietly from her perch, eyes closed, her dark brown skin glistening beneath the hot sun as she lifted her face towards it. She said nothing else; apparently she didn’t need to. 

He Tian watched, intrigued, as Li Shuang ducked her head in admonishment and a strip of colour flashed across her cheeks. She continued to row in silence, the gentle lull making the back of He Tian’s eyes ache with tiredness, the lap of oars slipping beneath the water like a lullaby.

‘That ship almost killed me, I take it,’ he said. 

There was no protruding piece of wood in his abdomen, but he still felt the dull pain of it. 

‘I tried to heal you as much as I could,’ Jian Yi told him, his grin wavering. ‘Healing was never my strong suit. It might hurt for a few days.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ Guan Shan added quietly.

Glancing upwards, He Tian held his gaze. There were things he wished to say—but not here, not now. He was alive; they would have time for it later. A moment alone, contained by four walls with no intruders or listening ears and watchful eyes. He Tian clung to the sweet promise of it.

‘What happened to Peng Fei?’ he asked.

The passengers all shared a grimace, but it was Zhengxi who spoke up. ‘I saw him go down, but… Dragonborn have survived worse. They’re hard creatures to kill—even against a kraken. If anyone on that ship somehow survives, it’ll be him.’

He Tian remembered the sound he’d heard in the last moments of chaos—a sound like singing. Peng Fei would fight the kraken himself if he had to, but He Tian spared a moment to the heavens. If not for him, no harm would have come to Peng Fei. No harm would’ve come to any of them. 

_Is that guilt?_

He Tian jerked. _Meilín?_ he asked warily, wondering if he’d imagined her voice. _I thought you were dead._

 _I’m harder to kill than that,_ came her prim response. _Much like your dragonborn friend._

He Tian shook his head. Shock was quickly ceding to anger. Drowning, he had called for her, as if he could rely on her. What a fool. In his anger, he’d lent his trust out like a hungry market boy taking stranger’s scraps. His father would be ashamed of him.

 _You_ left _,_ he accused her. _You were going to let me_ die.

He heard her click her tongue, or an approximation of the sound. _Don’t be absurd._

 _Absurd?_ He Tian countered. His inward laugh was coloured with pessimism. _I offered you my body if I died. You took your hands off the stern out of sheer opportunity._

 _I would use you as a last resort. I’d want your form as much as you’d want me to have it._ She paused. _It was chaos—your fear, the water, the storm. It brought back memories I didn’t want to relive._

He Tian sneered. _Pity,_ he said. _Instead you let me live them alone._

Meilín did not reply, and only now did He Tian realise how intently Guan Shan was staring down at him. 

‘Your _eyes_ ,’ Guan Shan muttered. ‘They’re—’

But he didn’t finish, crying out instead as the whole boat floundered.

Jian Yi had lurched to his feet, limbs flailing, sending the boat pitching from side to side. Li Shuang shouted out in warning, dropping the oars and spreading her arms to keep the paddle boat steady, but Jian Yi ignored her. 

‘Land!’ he cried, pointing. 

He Tian hoisted himself up, head twisting, ignoring the pull at his abdomen— _‘Careful!’_ Guan Shan ordered—and the others pitched forward to make out the tiny, grey mass on the horizon. 

‘Impossible,’ Nijena whispered. The silvery feathers in her dark hair fluttered in the breeze. ‘The journey on the Nightjar would have taken us a week, and the storm only carried us so far.’

Li Shuang chuckled to herself, the sound awkward and unconvincing. ‘I row fast, little angel. I not row fast as whole _ship_.’

Nijena considered Li Shuang’s biceps and broad shoulders, as if weighing up the probability of it. After a moment, she looked away. 

_Interesting,_ thought He Tian.

‘We’ve been sailing east this whole time,’ said Zhengxi, squinting up at the sun high on the horizon. It was directly above them now and He Tian had little sense of direction.

Guan Shan frowned. ‘Well,’ he said, following Zhengxi’s gaze. ‘Kinda.’

Everyone looked at him. 

_‘Kind of?’_ Jian Yi asked, his voice high-pitched and tight. ‘ _Kind of east?’_

Guan Shan closed his eyes, orienting himself. He had an inner compass that left He Tian marvelling. He Tian let him think.

‘We’re angled kinda north-east. Only slightly—by a couple degrees—but—’

‘Enough to end up on the west side of the island,’ Zhenxgi finished for him.

Guan Shan shrugged. ‘We can just adjust course east, can’t we?’

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ He Tian told him with a little bitterness, aware that Guan Shan didn’t have knowledge of the island as the others might. ‘Axle’s main port is accessible through a calm channel, and the waters around the rest of the island are a paradise for shipwrecks. We’d have to row out as far as possible to be in the right position to approach the channel.’

‘Doublin’ back on ourselves,’ Guan Shan concluded. 

‘We do not have the resources to journey longer,’ said Nijena. She glanced at her prisoner as if now understanding that the half-orc could not row forever. 

‘You no tell us sooner, _lulgijak?’_ Li Shuang demanded. ‘I row nearly four days! In wrong direction!’

‘He didn’t know, half-breed,’ He Tian growled. ‘Watch your tongue.’

Li Shuang spat it into the water, swearing under her breath in a stream of Orcish too fast for He Tian to translate. He supposed he was glad for it. He was in no position to be fighting and if Li Shuang fell overboard the paddleboat, the rest of them would go with her. He bit his tongue.

‘Don’t tell me you were relyin’ on _me_ for directions,’ Guan Shan told them all incredulously. ‘I’ve never seen a fuckin’ _map_.’

‘You could’ve said something _sooner_ ,’ Jian Yi protested.

Guan Shan turned on him, vicious. ‘A little busy thinkin’ the love of my fuckin’ life was gonna bleed out on a paddleboat, you _swot_.’

‘Hey,’ Zhengxi snapped. ‘Don’t call him that.’

‘Love of your life?’ He Tian echoed.

Guan Shan scoffed at the paladin. ‘I’ll call him what I want if he’s gonna start pokin’ fingers at people—’

‘You _started_ it, woodland—’

He Tian cut in: ‘Finish that sentence, sorcerer, I _dare_ you—’

‘Who’s callin’ names now—?’

‘Ha!’ Li Shuang crowed. ‘You knife-ears think _half-orc_ is loud—’

‘ _Knife-ears—?’_

_‘That’s enough!’_

The boat fell silent. Overhead, gulls had begun to circle, wings catching on the near-silent breeze. 

The Aasimar glared at each of them in turn, and each had the decency to look away. There was a particular measure of beauty that was painful to look at for too long, wrought with longing and lust, a cramped aching in your gut. He Tian felt this sometimes when he looked at Guan Shan. When twisted in anger, it was terrifying. 

Nijena wore hers like a nightmare.

‘This has not been the journey any of us anticipated,’ she told them quietly, her voice still tightly strung, battling for calm. ‘We can only deal with our circumstances as they evolve.’

Guan Shan’s response was steely. ‘And how d’you suggest ‘we _deal_ with those circumstances?’

‘We should row to land,’ said the Aasimar. ‘Gather provisions. Eat. Rest. There are villages on this side of the island that might help us. We can find mounts to take us to the port.’

‘Mount big enough for me?’ Li Shuang asked, considering the island warily. Axle was home to dwarves. The horses on the island were stout, stocky things used to roaming the mountainside and rocky terrain. Only near the port, where the island’s eponymous city stood glistening in white stone and the ships were twice as expensive as those in Gangling, would there be big enough horses for sale. They were creatures made for shows or racing, not for long rides. 

He Tian’s mouth quirked. ‘You can walk,’ he said. ‘Nijena can put a saddle on you.’

‘Don’t be crude,’ Nijena scolded.

‘I wouldn’t mind travelling by land,’ Zhengxi said after a moment. ‘I’ve had enough of boats for a while.’

‘I fuckin’ would,’ Guan Shan grumbled. ‘My arse was in a saddle for a week before I got to Gangling.’ 

‘You’ll get used to it, sweetheart,’ said He Tian. And then, with a smirk that wore none of the pain in his abdomen: ‘I thought you liked riding.’

There was nowhere to hide. Guan Shan struck him across the head, scuffing his hair, and he didn’t mind when Jian Yi snickered and Li Shuang bellowed her raucous laughter, catching the joke. The boat rocked, then steadied. 

Nijena ignored them. ‘Are we agreed then? We travel by land?’

‘What other choice do we have?’ He Tian asked. He didn’t mean for it to be grim and maudlin, but when Li Shuang began to steer with renewed vigour towards land that rose up from the water, the passengers looked upon it with mirrored looks that suggested they wouldn’t mind another few days at sea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember to **kudos, comment, or check out more ways of supporting me on[Tumblr](http://agapaic.tumblr.com/) if you enjoy my work!** Thank you so much for reading and stay safe!


	5. Chapter 5

Guan Shan made the fire once they hit land, walking from the sandy shoreline that skirted the edge of the jungle; the rest took up various roles of usefulness while the sun began to sink on the horizon, and cooling air rode the coastal winds to oust the wet, humid air. 

Li Shuang went to fetch firewood and Nijena watched her with one eye on her prisoner and the other on the empty woodland that hugged Axle’s western coastline. Jian Yi rested his depleted powers by wandering off to fill the group’s water skins from the freshwater estuary that ran into the sea; Zhengxi, his silent companion, went with him. 

‘I can make the fire,’ said Nijena. ‘So can Jian Yi.’

 _So can I,_ Meilín offered to He Tian. _If you’ve stopped sulking._

‘Let Guan Shan,’ He Tian told Nijena, gesturing to his partner, who stood silently to one side. ‘He knows how to build a fire.’

Guan Shan didn’t need magic to build a steady furnace that carried smoke up to the skies. His hands worked knowingly with flint and kindling and handfuls of dry leaves. Jian Yi offered a paper pamphlet from his pockets for kindling; from the shipwreck, the ink had run to illegible streaks of black across the crinkled paper, and he produced it mournfully with a dusty handful of biscuit crumbs, gone soggy and disintegrating, before leaving for fresh water. 

For a while, Guan Shan and He Tian were alone. 

They looked at each other from across the hot flame. Mosquitoes pestered them but didn’t bite, deterred by their woodland elf blood; the chirp of crickets and frogs was a frustrating drone at He Tian’s eardrums. He and Guan Shan could hear a rustle half a mile off; Guan Shan could smell the venom in a python’s fangs from a hundred paces. They pushed away the loudening life of the forest.

He Tian said, ‘I promise you a quieter life when this is over.’

‘Shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.’

‘I’ll try my best. Better?’

Guan Shan considered him shrewdly. His jaw working, he prodded at the fire with a long stick from the small pile of kindling set beside him. There was a popping sound, wet wood catching the flame. Ember sparks spat into the air before them. He Tian leaned back slightly.

‘I haven’t minded all this,’ Guan Shan said. ‘But I reckon I’ve seen enough of you almost dyin’ for a couple hundred years.’

He Tian bobbed his head. ‘So, what’s that?’ he asked, weighing the mathematical probability. ‘Two more opportunities in my lifetime?’

Guan Shan scowled. ‘Don’t try it,’ he warned.

‘That shook you, didn’t it? On the ship.’

‘Was it not s’posed to?’ Guan Shan countered, lip curling. ‘Your life is the whole fuckin’ reason I’m here.’

He Tian replied, with a great sense of smug pride, ‘According to you, I’m the love of yours.’

Guan Shan hurled a twig at him. He Tian dodged it with a slight leftward lean, the wood rushing past his ear with a faint _woosh._ He chuckled when Guan Shan huffed, and noted the faint upcurl of Guan Shan’s mouth. Guan Shan’s declaration stuck in him like a thorn with a rose at its end: painful and, almost despite itself, blooming with beauty. 

‘I said it without thinkin’,’ Guan Shan muttered, eyes lowered.

He Tian arched a brow and drew one knee up towards his chest, slinging an arm over his knee. His abdomen twinged, and he repositioned himself with frustration.

‘Does that mean it’s not true?’ he asked Guan Shan.

After a moment: ‘Didn’t say that, did I?’

‘Don’t be churlish,’ He Tian reprimanded lightly. His voice leaked fondness into his words: Guan Shan was pink-cheeked from the burn of the fire, and there was a light rasp to his throat when he spoke. His hair gleamed, drawn up into a loose, tangled bun of amber strands; above them, the sky had darkened, shadows playing across the jutting ridge of Guan Shan’s nose and cheekbones. The flecks of gold in his eyes, clay-coloured at night, whorled against the flame. 

The ache of longing made He Tian fear a little: he would be content to sit here for a millenia to watch the night play out on Guan Shan’s features, eyes giving into the hazy film of ennui and the rest of him into the inertia of the performance, like watching shadow puppets on a cavern wall. He wondered if Meilín could bring about a perpetual night so He Tian could watch Guan Shan by firelight. If He Tian blinked, perhaps the illusion would be shattered. He didn’t tempt it.

‘What?’

Caught out, He Tian smiled. ‘Your hair,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen it so unkempt.’

Guan Shan sniffed. ‘You’re not lookin’ so rich yourself.’

‘Apparently not,’ He Tian remarked. ‘Compared to the sizeable coin pouch my brother gave you, I’m practically a pauper.’

‘Doesn’t matter. When we get back it’s all I’ll have, and you’ll have anythin’ you want.’

 _Not true,_ He Tian thought. _You’ll have me._

‘Come here,’ he said instead. ‘I’ll sort out that unruly head of yours.’

It took a few moments of quiet grumbling while Guan Shan applied overzealous attention to the fire, which was not struggling in the slightest, and then Guan Shan rose to his feet and set himself down in the space He Tian had made for him. 

He Tian leaned in. ‘Wood smoke,’ he murmured, breathing deeply at Guan Shan’s neck. 

Guan Shan rolled his eyes, but didn’t retreat. ‘This why you wanted me buildin’ the fire?’

‘No—I just know how good your hands are at working with wood.’

A second passed—then Guan Shan lunged. 

They wrestled, their movements playful and more a light scuffle than any skilled fight. Loose leaves and gusts of dry earth settled over them. It didn’t last long. Soon, He Tian’s abdomen smarted from the jostled movement and he drew in a sharp breath. 

Guan Shan drew back immediately, taking stock. Concern furrowed his brow, and he made to press at the silvery patch of skin where the shard of the Nightjar’s hull had embedded itself in He Tian’s side. He Tian batted Guan Shan’s hand away gently. 

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Don’t fret.’

Guan Shan bristled. ‘You didn’t see yourself. Two pints of blood on that fuckin’ dingy the orc was rowing. Lucky we had a fuckin’ sorcerer.’

He Tian cupped Guan Shan’s cheek. Slowly, he ran his thumb over the bridge of his cheekbone, feeling dirt and grit crumble away beneath the touch. Something settled hotly in his stomach when Guan Shan leaned into the touch, defeated and worn out, like a cat crowding in for warmth. Even slower, He Tian’s hands reached upwards for the tangled knot of Guan Shan’s hair, and he found the tie that fastened it. He pulled. 

The thick, reddish abundance of Guan Shan’s hair tumbled down across his shoulders, the sharp points of his ears visible through the strands. Guan Shan’s eyes opened. 

‘You know they’re gonna be back any second,’ he murmured. 

He Tian considered this. ‘I owe you a very long thank you.’

Guan Shan looked away. ‘I’m not in the mood for gettin’ caught in the woods like some fuckin’ green at the barracks. Not tonight.’

He Tian sighed. 

Not on the ship, and not in the woods… 

He Tian’s ego was only slightly bruised. He knew Guan Shan had preferences. Endless nights of solitude and no disturbances, too shy to risk an interruption. He Tian paused, remembering Guan Shan’s words before he’d run from Sengōng: _If I’m embarrassed by anyone, it’s me._ Not shy, perhaps, He Tian thought. Ashamed.

He reached for a lock of Guan Shan’s hair, silken to the touch despite the rough goings of their journey, and ran his fingers through it. He Tian tugged on the end, feeling petulant.

‘If not _that_ ,’ he said, trying not to sound disappointed, ‘what then?’ 

Like some sort of large cat, He Tian watched pleasingly as Guan Shan took the initiative to stretch his lithe body out before the fire and lay his head on the folded cushion of He Tian’s thigh. His hair pooled into He Tian’s lap, and He Tian smiled. 

‘Are we fifty again?’ he asked playfully, his fingers setting to work. 

Guan Shan snorted, the sound reverberating through He Tian’s leg. ‘If by that you mean you chasin’ me through the woods at the back of the palace to pull on my hair.’

He Tian grinned. ‘You should’ve run faster. I always caught you.’

‘Not always.’

He Tian’s smile softened. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Not always.’

The conversation lulled. They were content for the silence to be punctuated by the crackle of flame and the whisper of night drawing in. Guan Shan was right: the others would be back soon. He Tian was hungry and tired; he was grateful for solid land and a canopy of trees as their shelter. No doubt Guan Shan appreciated it more. He Tian had pretended not to notice Guan Shan ducking off behind the treeline when Li Shuang moored the paddle boat onto Axle’s shore. 

‘Better?’ He Tian had asked when Guan Shan rejoined them, looking pale and wiping the back of his mouth with a shaky hand. 

‘Fuck off,’ said Guan Shan.

Now, He Tian smiled down at Guan Shan, stretched supine and languid, his legs crossed at the ankles. He had his knives strapped at his waist, more at his thigh. He Tian enjoyed the thought of peeling off his clothing to find the rest. He’d known Guan Shan was a hunter; they trained together as youths and He Tian knew Guan Shan’s capabilities well. 

Seeing him armed like this and not set before a forge—brandishing his own weapons and not another’s—made He Tian’s teeth ache; made him want to clutch a hand to his chest to stave off the pressure. Instead, he distracted his fingers through the strands of Guan Shan’s hair, satisfied with twisting coppery lengths until the hair at Guan Shan’s temples was plaited loosely into his scalp, the rest of it left to trail down. The last of the sun's disappearing rays met them; Guan Shan looked like a prince—something more.

In the jungle, darkness fell like pinching a candle wick between two fingers. Even with their heightened senses, it would be difficult to see further than the small clearing around them without the firelight. The trees above were like their own sky, the boughs too thick to see the stars. 

‘He Tian,’ Guan Shan murmured. 

‘Yes, Ah-Shan?’

Guan Shan swallowed. He had his eyes shut; the ridge at his brow was pinched. 

‘When we were on the boat, you got this look in your eyes. Like… Like all the light had left you.’

 _He’s insistent, isn’t he?_ Meilín murmured quietly. There was irritation in her voice, but something else, too—like appraisal. 

‘It was dark down there,’ said He Tian.

‘Not above deck.’ Guan Shan’s eyes opened, hardening. He sat up, and He Tian mourned the loss of his closeness, his warmth, the pressure of Guan Shan’s head against his thigh. ‘Don’t tell me I imagined it twice.’

He Tian sighed. _A little help, oh powerful one?_

_I don’t meddle with the affairs of love._

He resisted rolling his eyes. _Of course you don’t. Thank you for putting boundaries in place_ now.

Guan Shan didn’t do well with white lies. He could pick them out like a vulture picking carion off a ribcage, drawn in by the scent of rotten lies and half-truths. They had loved each other too long—Guan Shan had left Moryo to save him. He Tian owed Guan Shan this.

He Tian sighed again. ‘When I ran from the palace,’ he began, ‘I ran to the woodland.’

‘I know—your brother told me. Said they chased you to the cliffs and… somehow you lived after jumpin’ off the edge.’ Guan Shan angled his head. ‘You got a death wish?’

‘At the time, probably,’ He Tian chuckled. ‘But—I didn’t do it alone.’

Guan Shan narrowed his eyes. ‘You were with someone?’

He Tian made an ‘eh’ sound, feeling awkward. ‘Of a sorts,’ he admitted. ‘In the woodland, there are some old ruins.’

‘I know ‘em. We used to hang there as kids.’

‘Do you remember the tales He Cheng used to tell us about them? About a sorcerer bound to the stones?’

‘I remember,’ Guan Shan said cagily, his hackles raised. The mention of _someone_ had rankled him. ‘The fuck’s that got to do with—’

Guan Shan broke off. They both looked up at the sound of wood snapping, followed by heavy footsteps and the hissing of something being dragged across the leaves. Guan Shan jumped to his feet, hands going to his knives, and He Tian shortly followed, a little slower. 

They both narrowed their eyes. Guan Shan’s ears twitched to make out the sound, fingers tightening around the handle of a blade—and then he exhaled. They both relaxed at once, making out the approaching figures. 

Li Shuang came into the clearing, with Nijena standing a little way off at her side. Li Shuang carried a makeshift axe over one shoulder that Jian Yi had magicked for her, and over the other she had slung the hind legs of a stag, its torso and head dragging limply at her feet along the forest floor. Li Shuang grinned, dropping her kill proudly before the fire, where both elves jumped back slightly with their mouths agape. The stag was huge _._ It wore no visible injuries, but its head hung at an awkward angle; its neck had been snapped. 

The half-orc’s hands rested on her hips, and He Tian could not help but notice the smug gleam of Nijena’s averted gaze as Li Shuang demanded, ‘Now, _paras—_ you will be hungry!’

*******

They ate by the fire that night, which Guan Shan kept dutifully burning as if it were a beacon. The deer was good. Guan Shan watched He Tian’s forearms work, his hands skilled with a knife as he helped Li Shuang skin and gut it. Zhengxi stood guard at the edge of the small clearing, making slow circles around the firepit and his eyes keeping watch through the darkness. Jian Yi looked on at the butchers’ workings with some queasiness that developed into a drooling, voracious hunger as pieces of meat fat spat into the flames. He ate with none of his high elf delicacy when it was ready, all of them too hungry for etiquette. 

Li Shuang talked ceaselessly while they ate, her booming voice sure to scare off any creatures that might be lurking through the copes of rainforest. She was a talented story-teller, Guan Shan realised, listening to her fierce recollections of battles from the civil war in Hàndì and the treacherous voyages she’d made across sea to acquire her people provisions. 

_Not a pirate,_ Guan Shan was thinking, as Li Shuang recalled another shipwreck she’d experienced, trying to steal medicine from a navy merchant’s ship off the coast of Axle originally intended to be offloaded to various apothecaries in Moryo. _Not a pirate at all. A revolutionary._

Guan Shan felt a bit bad: it was as if Li Shuang were the only one here offering any truth—each one of them held their little lies close to their chests, eager to listen and give fuck all in return.

Jian Yi was audience enough for her, gasping at the right moments, laughing and crooning suitably at the rest, but even Guan Shan could feel himself leaning into the tales the half-orc spun, eyes growing heavy-lidded with the fire and venison now sitting pleasantly in his stomach, indulging in the arm He Tian had slung around his lower back and the slow press of He Tian’s thumb as it circled his hip. The touch of it would be almost obscene if Guan Shan weren’t ready to fall asleep then and there. 

Guan Shan noticed as the evening darkened, and with a touch of jealousy, that He Tian was considering the half-orc with a new gaze. As if he were impressed. No—like, if he were tasked with one day forming his own revolution, he might want her by his side. Guan Shan leaned into He Tian’s touch a little more fully. 

Trade deals had been set between merchants and humans long before Hàndì was overrun by the orcs. At that time, Hàndì had been a fertile plain of vast steppes and limestone karsts, its ripeness plucked at by medicine traders who recognised the fields of healing herbs that grew wildly across the plains. When war came, the flat lands were pillaged by the orcs, threatening humans and each other. 

Guan Shan listened to her story and glanced at her prison warden. Nijena was listening intently, her dark, even gaze shifting routinely between the fire and Li Shuang’s face, as if she couldn’t decide which captured her attention more.

_Huh._

They ate what they could, letting Jian Yi use as a preservation spell that would let the meat cure overnight. They would only be able to carry some of it with them in the morning, but it would line their stomachs before they continued through Axle’s rainforest and made their way towards the port. 

‘Your hair is good like that,’ said Li Shuang, as Guan Shan started to rise from the fireside. ‘Is good for you.’

He Tian chuckled. ‘That would be my handiwork,’ he said smugly, admiring Guan Shan’s plaited auburn tresses. He reached a hand out and wrapped it around the back of Guan Shan’s thigh, which Guan Shan considered with some curiosity. 

_Jealous?_ his look said. 

He Tian smirked up at him. _Withdrawal._

Li Shuang’s brows had lifted, the hairs sparse enough that they were almost bald at the ridge of her brow—the effect making her no less severe. ‘You work with hands? In Moyro?’

Guan Shan watched He Tian hesitate, before smirking. ‘Of a sorts,’ he said. 

‘He’s a weaver,’ said Guan Shan. 

There was a weighted pause between the group. Guan Shan saw Jian Yi and Zhan Zhengxi exchange a look he couldn’t translate. 

_Weaving?_ Guan Shan saw Jian Yi mouth. Zhengxi shrugged. 

After a moment, Li Shaung made a sound of disgust, shaking her head. 

_‘Paras_ like _you_ make _cloth_?’ she asked. ‘Is big shame. You are built like warrior. You kill many men—bed many more.’ She sucked on her teeth. _‘Weaver,_ ’ she said again.

‘Weaving’s well-respected in the North Kingdom,’ Guan Shan informed her. ‘Tapestries, huntin’ leathers, bridle tack.’ He squeezed He Tian’s shoulder. ‘Your kind of work keeps things runnin’, right?’

‘Indeed,’ He Tian mused.

Unconvinced, Li Shuang muttered under her breath, and eventually they began preparations for sleep. Nijena offered to take the first watch—which all but He Tian felt comfortable with, still resentful of her weakness against the Drow—until Li Shuang offered to watch with her as a pair. They would sit quietly before the fire and let the others sleep before Zhengxi and Guan Shan took the second watch. He Tian needed rest from his injuries, and Jian Yi needed to replete his energy stores for performing magic. They all agreed.

The forest was humid and hot; there was no need for blankets or conjured fabrics to keep themselves warm. Instead, Guan Shan and He Tian lay close to one another on the damp ground and Guan Shan shivered when He Tian’s breath ghosted across the back of his neck. An approximation of a laugh. Guan Shan could almost hearthe twinkling glint in He Tian’s eyes like ice cracking beneath hot water. He Tian tucked a plaited strand of Guan Shan’s hair behind his ear. 

Guan Shan knew what was coming. 

‘A weaver, is it?’

Guan Shan mashed his cheek further into the ground, probably getting dirt in his hair. ‘Fuck off.’

Beneath the quiet sound of Jian Yi’s snores from across the clearing, Guan Shan could hear He Tian laughing. 

*******

Guan Shan didn’t know what woke him. Around him, it was still pitch. The fire burned quietly and needed stoking, and Guan Shan could feel the hard length of He Tian’s body at his back. He heard He Tian sigh as he pressed back, heard a sigh of a different kind as Guan Shan pulled away. He Tian’s arm reached for him in sleep as Guan Shan sat up, rubbing at his eyes, but Guan Shan ignored it. 

On the other side of the fire, Guan Shan could see two sleeping forms. Jian Yi’s wiry frame curled foetal-like, inches from Zhengxi’s. Jian Yi’s head was all that touched him, his crown resting against the paladin’s shoulder, and a hand was drawn up into a fist at his side, as if it were all that prevented Jian Yi from winding himself fully around the guard. Feeling like he’d been looking at something he shouldn’t, Guan Shan pulled his gaze away. 

At the fireside, Nijena and Li Shuang were still awake, sitting close. Nijena was speaking quietly, her tone undulating lyrically like a prayer, and Guan Shan couldn’t make out her words. Was she telling Li Shuang a story of her own?

Both women looked over at him as Guan Shan rose to his feet, rolling off the ache of sleeping on hard ground. He watched as Nijena leaned away from Li Shuang, an unconscious gesture—caught out. 

‘Is it our shift yet?’ he asked quietly, taking care as he stepped over He Tian’s sleeping form and towards the fire. ‘You must be tired.’

‘We are fine,’ said Nijena. ‘Rest for another hour.’

Guan Shan lifted his brow. ‘If you’re sure,’ he said. He swallowed, working his tongue around his mouth, still dry with dehydration and the saltiness of the venison. He looked around for a water skin or bucket. ‘We’re out of water?’

Li Shuang waved a hand dissmissively at him, getting to her feet and reminding Guan Shan how fucking _big_ she was. ‘I get water,’ said the half-orc gruffly. ‘You stay.’

‘I got it,’ said Guan Shan, grabbing two empty waterskins from the ground. The oily leather was warm from the fire. ‘We’ll switch shifts when I come back.’

 _‘Paras,_ ’ said Li Shuang, frowning. ‘Is dangerous.’

Her argument wasn’t a strong one, and Guan Shan felt a smirk on his lips that he knew he’d inherited from He Tian. Li Shuang wouldn’t need much persuading to remain at the fireside with her pretty Aasimar companion. _Warden,_ Guan Shan reminded himself.

Guan Shan grunted. ‘I got it,’ he said again. He patted the knives fixed across his body. ‘I’ll be fine. I need to take a piss anyway.’

‘In river?’ asked Li Shuang, pulling a face. ‘After you fill water, yes?’

Guan Shan snorted. ‘No promises.’

*******

It took him half an hour to find the river Jian Yi and Zhengxi had found earlier, more a stream than anything else. The darkness was heavy but not impossible, and Guan Shan’s senses led him fluidly to the sound of running water and the smell of damp stone. 

He crouched down low at the riverside to uncork the skins; the water was blissfully cold against his knuckles as he filled them. The trees were thinner here on either side of the bank, the canopy above the small river light enough that a few freckled stars could peer through. 

He stayed there a moment with his hands submerged beneath the water, letting it cool down the veins that had raised on the backs of his hands and the thumping arteries at his wrists. He cupped a handful of water and dropped it down the back of his neck, sighing at the relief of staving off the humidity, then stood. 

He stopped. 

A little way from him, a figure stood half-way up the bank, hovering between the trees where Guan Shan had just come. They were tall and slight, hunched over strangely as if sleep-walking. Had Zhengxi followed him here? 

‘I just got water,’ Guan Shan said, coming closer. ‘We were out.’

The figure didn’t reply. They were too still. Perhaps they hadn’t heard him. A chill ran over the back of Guan Shan’s neck, and it had nothing to do with the cool palmful of water he had just let trickle across his warm skin. Slowly, Guan Shan tied the waterskins to his belt with leather tendrils and withdrew his knives. 

His father’s blade was a comfortable weight in his palm, and he held it as if he’d been fighting with it his whole life. 

‘Who are you?’ Guan Shan called out. 

No reply. 

_Fuck this,_ Guan Shan thought. He was on an unfamiliar island. At night. Hidden somewhere in a jungle a few miles from the rest of the group—from He Tian. He wasn’t taking chances. 

He hefted the knife in his palm—and threw.

The blade landed with a _thunk_ in the figure’s shoulder. They jolted backwards as if caught by an arrow and then, slowly, straightened to come face-forward. Unphased. 

Guan Shan’s eyes widened. ‘What the…’

It should’ve severed a fucking tendon—they should’ve cried out, maybe gone to their knees. Instead, Guan Shan stared as the figure reached slowly up to grab the hilt of the blade embedded in their shoulder, and started to pull it out. 

‘No, you fuckin’ don’t,’ Guan Shan grumbled, jerking out a hand. The knife should’ve flown immediately into his waiting palm, but it didn’t budge. The figure still held his father’s knife. Guan Shan fumbled as he pulled another knife from his belt and watched it soar in the same arc—lodging in the creature’s throat. It stumbled, longer this time, and Guan Shan thought it would go down. It pulled up another hand, withdrew the blade. 

Guan Shan stared, realisation like a pit of dread in his stomach. If the creature hadn’t been armed with knives before, it was now. They were even. Guan Shan sucked in a breath, glanced once at the riverbank behind him, then ran forward.

The creature didn’t balk as he ran at it, didn’t budge a muscle, and Guan Shan let out a cry of fearful rage as he jumped high, the blade of a third knife raised in the air, and slammed it down into the creature’s back. There was a wet crunch, like soft bone shattering, and the creature had sprawled onto the floor beneath the impact. It still held Guan Shan’s knives. It blinked into the floor. 

Guan Shan took a step back from it, swallowing. 

Close-up, he could see it was a man, but its features were all off. Its skin shone strangely like oil or slick mud, and its humanoid features were placed at odd angles on its face, as if a sculptor had worked at its nose and mouth with their eyes closed and pulled it too early from the kiln.

Not human—a glance at its ears, checking its height—not an elf. Shaking his head, Guan Shan took another step back. 

What the fuck was it?

_‘GUAN SHAN, GET DOWN!’_

Guan Shan startled as He Tian’s voice roared through the treeline. 

He span to pinpoint where it had come from. A white hot flare of light shot in his direction. It burned past his ear, faster than the toss of a throwing knife, and Guan Shan’s heart hammered in his chest as he ducked. It left a fizzle of magic in the air, charged and prickly, and Guan Shan lunged for the knives in the creature’s hands, still lying prone and lifeless on the floor.

It didn’t resist as Guan Shan took them, pulling them from its grip like wading through thick mud.

Guan Shan swore as another flare burned through the aether, rolling just in time from the spot where he’d just been. The flare scorched the earth, leaving a hole of blackened, smouldering mud in Guan Shan’s wake.

‘He Tian!’ he shouted. ‘He Tian, what’s going on!’

 _‘Stay down!’_ He Tian called back. His breathing was laboured, pained, as if he were struggling with something. Guan Shan’s chest hurt. 

He looked around him. Another jet of scalding magic came at him and he rolled. Panting, Guan Shan swiped the hair back that was now sticking to his face. He should’ve left it up, not wasted He Tian’s time with the detail—it was going to be ruined now.

What the fuck was going on?

Guan Shan steeled himself when the fourth flash of light came; he delayed his escape until the last moment possible, eyes narrowed as the white beam lit up the whole forest— _there!_ —and then lunged to one side. Guan Shan had seen exactly where it had come from.

At the top of the bank, a Drow sorcerer was running through the thicket of rainforest, dark-robed and grimacing as she tried to track Guan Shan’s movements along the bank before releasing her next shot. And there, a little way across from her, was He Tian. Stalking his way after her.

 _What the fuck are you doing?_ Guan Shan thought fearfully. He Tian and his family had a natural defence against the Drow’s magic, but he wouldn’t come out of a confrontation unscathed, and he was already weak with injury. 

Guan Shan’s face fell. ‘He Tian, _no!’_

He shouldn’t have bothered. 

Suddenly, He Tian had his hands lifted, and a bright red light seemed to jet from his palms. It shot outwards, bright enough that Guan Shan could see it beam into the Drow and lift her off her feet, the back of her skull colliding with a tree. She lay limp for a few seconds, and Guan Shan stared, eyes adjusted to the darkness, and watched as He Tian stalked through the trees and kneeled over her. 

A ring of steel as He Tian’s sword was withdrawn from its scabbard. 

The wet gurgle of a slit throat.

Guan Shan didn’t move until He Tian made his way down the bank, feet unsteady on the wet slope of leaves and mud while he sheathed his sword again. He shuddered to a stop and grabbed Guan Shan by the shoulders. He shook him. 

‘Are you okay?’ He Tian demanded. The whites of his eyes were black, starting to fade. ‘Are you alright?’

‘’M fine.’

‘You’re not hurt?’ His eyes darted across Guan Shan’s face. ‘She didn’t get you?’

‘I said I’m fine.’

He Tian nodded, stepping back. He released him. His hands bunched into fists at his sides and he breathed out through his nose. 

‘One of the Drow—they must be tracking me. Father probably gave them something, and they used a _gollum_ to lure you. I woke up and saw you were gone—they must have thought I’d follow.’

_You did._

He Tian’s gaze fell over Guan Shan’s and twisted. He charged forward, pushing past Guan Shan and towards the creature that still lay prone on the ground. He lifted his sword, bringing it down in one fell swoop. Another wet crunch. The _gollum_ ’s head flew from its torso, then bounced, rolled, and came to a stop at the riverside where Guan Shan had just filled their waterskins. He felt sick. 

He Tian wiped his sword into the forest floor and straightened. ‘We should go,’ he said, taking Guan Shan by the arm again. ‘It’s not safe here. I don’t know if there are more.’

Guan Shan didn’t move.

He Tian looked at him. ‘Ah-Shan, come on, we—’

‘You used magic.’

He Tian swallowed. ‘No, I—’

‘I saw it. I saw _you.’_ Guan Shan pulled away from his touch. ‘I’ve known you for nearly a fuckin’ century. You’ve never had magic before. Your family aren’t carriers.’ Guan Shan didn’t want to say it, but he had to: ‘Have you been lyin’ to me this whole time? 

‘Guan Shan—’

‘Is this how you got off the cliff? Is it? _Is it,_ He Tian? _Tell me!’_

He Tian put his head in his hands. When they fell away, Guan Shan saw pain in his eyes, but Guan Shan’s anger was too hot to care. How many times had He Tian lied? How many times had Guan Shan been brought under the ruse? Led astray by him? What the fuck was he doing on this island— 

‘Yes,’ He Tian said, quiet. ‘Yes, it’s magic, but—It’s not mine.’

‘What the fuck are you—’

‘I’ll tell you. I promise I’ll tell you everything.’ His look was earnest, imploring him. Begging for his trust. Guan Shan’s stomach twisted. Fuck, he couldn’t cry right now. ‘But we have to go. The others could be under attack. Please.’

_Sweetheart, just—trust me!_

Another request; another plea. How many more? How many more lies where Guan Shan wasn’t given the truths he knew he deserved. He Cheng would argue Guan Shan didn’t deserve anything—at the end of this, he’d have money and a prince whose heart was beating. He’d done his kingdom proud. What else was there? Guan Shan shook his head. 

‘After,’ said Guan Shan. ‘Or you’re makin’ your own way to Longdì.’

He Tian let out a breath of air. ‘After,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

*******

The group didn’t ask them what the danger was: one look at their faces and their mud-stained clothes and the travellers were on their feet and walking fast. Dawn broke when they left the main throng of rainforest, eventually hitting a dirt track road that lead towards a cluster of villages, and the day promised to be a hot one. They moved slowly; Guan Shan knew Nijena and Li Shuang must be exhausted, and Jian Yi gave them each a little boost that only lasted until noon and made sweat bead at his brow.

‘At least it’s good practice,’ said Jian Yi, chuckling a little shakily as they carried on walking, stone crunching beneath their feet. 

‘Struggling with endurance?’ He Tian asked drily. 

Jian Yi grinned. ‘Are you offering lessons?’

‘I think He Tian’s boyfriend might take offence,’ said Zhengxi—a little stiff, Guan Shan thought.

Jian Yi glanced at Zhengxi once, but didn’t catch on. ‘Is _that_ what you and Guan Shan were doing when you came back from the river?’ He waggled his brows. ‘All those mud and leaves… And here we thought you had a monster on your trail.’

‘There was a monster,’ said Guan Shan. ‘A big one.’

He Tian knocked his shoulder. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you flatter me.’

Guan Shan stepped away from his touch, ignoring how He Tian frowned while the rest of the party chuckled at the tawdry banter. Guan Shan didn’t care that he was put out. He could wait for any yielding to his touches until Guan Shan had the interrupted truth—all of it. 

They came to a village eventually, where there was a small inn for people travelling far from the port who wanted to see the rest of the island. There wasn’t much else to see, Guan Shan thought. Outside of the rainforest, the land was dry and cracked and the climate was arid. Nijena informed them that the other side of the island was more beautiful, the port set in the foothills of fertile rainforest and mountains and an azure coastline that boasted enough beauty for a lifetime.

‘You come to Axle before?’ Li Shuang asked her.

‘Once,’ said the Aasimar. ‘I worked this side, in one of the villages. Clerical tasks.’

‘As opposed to this?’ Zhan Zhengxi asked. Nijena’s eyes flickered to his, and she knew what he was asking. They all did. 

_How did you go from backwater administration to bounty hunting?_

Nijena said, ‘Yes.’ 

She cleared her throat. They carried on walking. The inn was small, a quarter of the size of the inns in Gangling, and sparsely furnished. It was a half-way house more than anything, with four dishes on the menu and boasting a choice of two dwarven ales or stout. Water, the innkeep told them gruffly, eyeing the strange group with no small amount of suspicion, cost double. There were four rooms and a half-day rate if they did not wish to stay the night. 

‘We should keep moving,’ He Tian said grimly. ‘The longer we stay in one place…’

‘Time is sensitive to us all,’ said Nijena. ‘But we are all exhausted.’

‘We can rest properly in Axle.’

‘Elf—’

‘Is okay, little one,’ said Li Shuang, shrugging her large shoulders. ‘Three hours of sleep then I battle whole army.’

Guan Shan turned to the barkeep. ‘Are there horses we can use to get to the port?’

The dwarf’s eyes rested on He Tian before settling on Li Shuang. After a minute, he looked back to Guan Shan. 

‘No.’

‘None at all?’

‘Not for them—not here.’ The man’s lip curled. ‘This ain’t a place for tourists.’

‘You own an _inn_ ,’ said Guan Shan.

With a sigh, Zhengxi sidled up next to him, palms open wide and fingertips extended to the barkeep. ‘We’ll take the rooms. We may be gone in a few hours.’

The man grunted. ‘Same price applies.’

Zhengxi inclined his head. ‘Of course,’ he said, pleasantly. He began to reach into his bag, prompting the metallic rattle of coin, and asked, ‘If we _were_ to get to the port…’ 

‘Carriages go twice a week t’port,’ said the innkeep. His eyes glittered behind thickset brows. ‘Reckon you’ll be staying a few days if you’re wanting to catch them.’

‘And by foot?’

The man snorted, opened his mouth, then closed it. He reassessed the group with a different sort of look. Carefully, he said, ‘There’s a pass through the mountains.’ He scratched at his jaw. ‘Would take better part of a day, I reckon.’

‘It’s safe?’ asked Jian Yi. 

‘Safe as a pass through the mountains, I reckon.’

Guan Shan heard He Tian sigh behind him. 

They rested, splintering off into rooms to sleep and wash. Guan Shan spent He Cheng’s coin on food and mead and ignored He Tian’s request to join him in one of the bedrooms. After an hour, he went to the last empty room, curling on his side, and slept until the sky was pink with dusk, the sun setting behind the mountain a few miles away. 

They met downstairs before it grew dark. It didn’t matter if they waited until tomorrow to travel; the passage through the mountains would be dark, and they were losing time. The six of them shared a final meal and filled their waterskins before leaving the village. 

It was quiet while they walked; there were lights visible through the stout brick and mortar houses that dotted the arid landscape, and each village was the same as the last. 

‘Remain quiet,’ Nijena warned them as they walked. ‘The villagers do not appreciate boisterous outsiders here. It is not the port.’ 

Guan Shan’s legs were already starting to burn by the time they hit the pass leading them through the mountains. There was no toll to pay, only a small dwarf girl standing by the entrance selling vine fruits from a rolling cart that had seen better days. 

‘It’s not poisoned,’ Guan Shan told Zhengxi, who was eyeing Jian Yi warily as he paid an outrageous amount of coin for a punnet of striped yellow berries. ‘I can smell it.’

Zhengxi grunted. ‘It’ll keep him happy,’ he said, bidding the girl farewell and making their way into the dark cavern. It was narrow and small here, wide only enough for them to walk single file, the ceiling low enough that Li Shuang had to duck her head as she led the way. Guan Shan’s chest felt tight. He trained his eyes on the broad width of He Tian’s shoulders as he moved in front of him, twisting his body to fit through the passageway. 

Guan Shan glanced behind him at Zhengxi, recalling his words. ‘That somethin’ you prioritise?’ he asked. ‘His happiness?’

There was a pause. 

‘I have to consider it,’ said the paladin quietly. 

‘Consider what?’ Jian Yi asked, chewing on the yellow fruits as he followed Zhengxi close behind.

‘Keep focused,’ Nijena reproached from the rear. ‘The ground is uneven.’

‘Does it open up?’ He Tian asked, turning his head over his shoulders. ‘Our orc friend here might have some difficulty walking by the time we’re through.’ 

Guan Shan heard Li Shuang grunt from the front of the group, her shoulders hunched inward to fit through the narrow walls of the cave. 

‘I walk fine,’ said Li Shuang. ‘I was prisoner in cage on ship for four weeks.’

Guan Shan thought he heard Nijena draw in a breath. 

‘A cage?’ Jian Yi squeaked. ‘Like—’

‘Like you think. Was like being dog.’

Jian Yi swallowed. ‘Nijena, you—’

 _‘Pshaw_. Was not angel’s fault, said Li Shuang, clicking her tongue. ‘She find me when I get to Gangling. Is funny. I sail from coast of Hàndì to Moryo—and now I am brought back all the way to Longdì—right beneath Hàndì! _Fuckaumn idioavuk._ ’

Guan Shan snorted. Her Orcish needed no translation. 

‘How do you feel?’ asked He Tian. 

‘About what, little prince?’

He Tian hesitated. For a while, there was only the sound of their boots crunching against loose stone. Eventually He Tian said, ‘About being put on trial. For crimes you didn’t commit.’

‘But I did,’ said Li Shuang, shrugging as best she could. ‘I am pirate.’

‘Your people would’ve died without your help.’

‘My people die with my help. War in Hàndì make everyone prisoner.’

Guan Shan couldn’t see He Tian’s face, but he could picture it: the furrowed brow, the taut mouth, the heavy weight of darkness in his eyes. Guan Shan knew what He Tian was getting at. People in the North Kingdom were victims of his father’s rule; He Tian and his brother would be traitors for trying to end it, not saviours. 

Would he get a cage? Put on some ship and forced into squalor before a trial in Sengōng? Or would the Drow slaughter him before he got the chance?

A thought struck Guan Shan: he was considering He Tian’s demise as if he would not suffer it alongside him, too. 

He stumbled.

Hands caught him, fingers firm around his biceps. Through the weak light of the orbs Jian Yi and Nijena were powering, Guan Shan stared into He Tian’s darkened gaze.

‘Are you alright?’

Guan Shan swallowed. He nodded, head jerking forward. ‘Let’s keep movin’.’

*******

Guan Shan didn’t know how long they walked before He Tian found the runes. Guan Shan’s eyes were straining in the weak light of the orbs, and his mouth was dry from the dusty air.

Occasionally a reed-like wind would blow through like a cool exhalation, and then it would be gone. They stopped twice to stretch and rest their legs, but otherwise the journey was a long one with little distraction. Even Li Shuang was quiet. The passage widened slightly a few hours into their journey, enough that Guan Shan and He Tian could walk side by side, if they wanted. 

Here, Li Shuang was able to stand with only a few strands of her purple hair grazing the stone ceiling, and Guan Shan felt he could draw in a breath that actually filled his lungs. 

His chest was expanding when He Tian gave them command, and Guan Shan’s breath caught in his throat— 

‘Stop. Everyone stop.’

As one, they all came to a halt. 

‘Is something wrong?’ Nijena asked He Tian, squinting through the darkness. ‘Are you hurt?’

He Tian didn’t reply. He had turned to face the cavern wall on their right, and his hand was raised to the cool stone. 

‘What is it?’ Guan Shan asked, following his gaze. 

‘There’s something here,’ said He Tian. ‘I can’t make it out but—’

 _‘I feel it,’_ gasped Jian Yi. 

Guan Shan gritted his teeth. ‘Care to share?’

He didn’t much like the thought of running back the way he’d come. 

Nijena and Jian Yi passed him to inspect the wall, and it was Jian Yi who spoke first. 

‘These are Drow marks,’ he whispered. 

Zhengxi shouldered his way through. ‘Impossible,’ he said, frowning. 

Li Shuang laughed. ‘We walk all the way to Moryo?’ she asked jokingly, but they could all hear the faint strain of dread in her voice. 

‘There’s no way,’ Guan Shan muttered, narrowing his eyes at the unfamiliar scratchings on the walls. 

‘There’s every way,’ said He Tian, grim. 

Jian Yi’s fingertips grazed against the stone. ‘This feels like portal magic,’ he murmured. ‘It feels like there’s a door that I could just… push open…’

Zhengxi snatched his hand away, leaving Jian Yi to blink at him. His eyes were clouded. He shook himself, turned to He Tian. 

‘There was a Drow in Gangling,’ he said. ‘You said it was a coincidence that he was chasing you.’

He Tian nodded. ‘At the time, I thought so.’

‘Why would Drow want weaver?’ Li Shuang demanded. 

‘You made us leave the forest,’ Zhengxi said to He Tian, narrowing his eyes. ‘Was this why? Are you an enemy of the Drow? Have you put them on our tail?’

Guan Shan stepped forward. ‘Maybe these kinda questions should be answered _away_ from the portal, yeah?’

Zhengxi’s gaze turned on him, rife with mistrust. ‘Did you know this, too? Is this why you are with him?’

‘Put your sword away, paladin,’ He Tian muttered. ‘This has nothing to do with him.’

‘I suspect it has a lot to do with him,’ Zhengxi countered archly. 

‘What are you gonna do?’ asked Guan Shan. ‘Kill us and leave us here to even out the stakes?’

‘Of course he isn’t,’ Jian Yi protested, but the hard look in Zhengxi’s dark blue eyes said he was considering it. His hand still held Jian Yi’s tightly.

‘Mo Guan Shan is right,’ said Nijena. ‘We should continue onwards. This magic is… unstable.’

‘D’you feel it?’ Guan Shan asked. It took He Tian a moment to realise the question was directed at him. His gaze lowered. 

‘I have always _felt_ magic,’ he murmured. _But I have not always used it._

Glowering, Guan Shan turned away. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. 

They barely walked a minute when Jian Yi let out a shout, spinning back around to where Guan Shan brought up the end of their line. Jian Yi’s hand shot out, a slender finger pointing behind them. 

‘The portal!’ 

Guan Shan didn’t need to ask what he meant—he could feel it on his skin, the same kind of heat he’d felt in the rainforest, white hot and severing if it touched his skin. The hairs on his arms lifted up, and he thought he might be sick. 

‘EVERYONE RUN!’ He Tian roared. 

They bolted, scrambling through the passageway, but they were moving too fast for Nijena’s and Jian Yi’s lights to keep up, and Li Shuang swore every time her head thudded on a lowered part of the ceiling. 

Guan Shan didn’t dare look behind him. He didn’t want to know if the Drow were through the tunnel. He didn’t want to know if there was a sorcerer on his heel, an arm outstretched, ready to grab the trailing strands of hair that flew behind him while he ran. 

He saw He Tian throw a look behind him, catching Guan Shan’s anguished gaze, and he jerked to one side to let the others scramble past him while he waited for Guan Shan to catch up. When Guan Shan reached him, his hand was outstretched. Guan Shan didn’t think twice about taking it. 

‘I won’t let you go,’ He Tian told him, holding tight as he pulled Guan Shan through the passage and they picked up pace again. 

Guan Shan swallowed hard, letting He Tian tug him through, clinging fiercely to his touch. Guan Shan swallowed a cry. 

They couldn’t run like this for long—He Tian’s wild backwards glances, morphing into grimaces, said he knew it. 

How far could they get before their pursuers caught up with them? How far before Guan Shan fell to the ground with a hole burnt through the middle of him? He was already drained from travelling to Gangling, from the ship, from the _gollum_ in the forest. He was exhausted. 

‘He Tian,’ he panted. ‘We’ve—gotta _stop_.’ He gritted his teeth together. ‘You can fight ‘em.’

He Tian grimaced. ‘I can’t rely on those powers, Guan Shan. I told you—’ He swore, ducking his head to avoid a sharp hit of rock that jutted down. ‘—they’re not mine to control.’

‘You’ve gotta do _somethin’_!’

Just then, a white beam of light lit up the whole tunnel. Rock exploded to Guan Shan’s left, half the wall taken away with the impact, and suddenly Guan Shan was back in the rainforest, dodging an invisible power. Ahead of him, Li Shuang was swearing loudly, her footsteps booming as she ran, and Zhengxi’s armour clattered as he tried to keep up the pace and tug Jian Yi along with him. 

Guan Shan shot a glance backwards; he could see the shadows of two figures not far from them. He couldn’t make out their faces, but they had the unmistakable features of a Drow: their hair ice-white, their irises indistinguishable from the pupil. Guan Shan saw barbed teeth and spider-like fingers reaching outwards.

 _‘Anythin’!’_ he shouted. 

He heard He Tian say something, a string of words that sounded like a prayer—like he was talking to someone—and then a strange light began to appear ahead of them. Surely they couldn’t have reached the other side of the mountain by now? It would be hours, at least. 

‘Go straight through!’ He Tian shouted, sounding pained. ‘It’s a portal!’

‘Drow portal?’ Nijena shouted fearfully. 

‘Mine!’

‘To where?’ Jian Yi cried. 

‘Just trust me!’

 _That won’t work on them,_ Guan Shan thought, but he shouldn’t have bothered second-guessing it. Their options were limited right now, and Li Shuang didn’t stop running, Nijena close behind. Guan Shan watched as the pair were swallowed by the strange light of He Tian’s portal, and Jian Yi’s hair became a halo of golden light as he and Zhengxi approached next. 

‘Fuck!’ 

Guan Shan was yanked backwards as He Tian crashed forward into the floor. His foot had caught on something, and Guan Shan grabbed on his arm. 

‘He Tian, c’mon!’

Another flash of light—they ducked as rock exploded around them like a boom of thunder; the passageway was thick and choked with magic like fireworks. Guan Shan’s eyes watered. His throat stung. 

He Tian was clutching at his side where he’d been wounded on the boat, face cramped with pain. He was a dead weight as Guan Shan tried to pull him to his feet. The Drow was gaining on them. 

_‘Hurts,’_ He Tian gasped. There was a sheen of sweat over his face that hadn’t been there before. How was he powering a portal? Guan Shan’s eyes darted across his face. He looked at the wound. It was bleeding again. Hadn’t it been a clean scar, flesh knitted together when they’d left the jungle?

Guan Shan swore under his breath, grabbing both of He Tian’s hands. He didn’t know if this would work; he’d only tried it a few times, had seen his mother do it a couple of times, too. 

Warmth leached from his hands. He could feel himself going cold all over, like stepping outside in winter after a day at the forge. His bones ached, and he ground his teeth together to push it away. 

‘Guan Shan, don’t—’ He Tian stopped. He jerked upright, straightened, as if the pain had vanished. His eyes were suddenly clear. No—his eyes were _black._

The smile, as he stood, was not his own. His eyes, as he pulled on Guan Shan’s hand and tugged towards the portal, were not his own. ‘Thank you, Mo Guan Shan,’ he said, and Guan Shan ran, letting He Tian pull on his arm until the portal swallowed them whole. 

His voice, Guan Shan realised as the portal swallowed them whole, was not his own. 

*******

‘Zheng An has your support,’ Qiu grunted, hands vibrating painfully with the impact of He Chengms sword on his own. 

‘You mean—’ He Cheng withdrew, circled, struck. ‘—I have his?’

Another blow. Qiu’s arms trembled. ‘It’s the same thing; you’re entrusting him not to give you up.’

He Cheng frowned—a perfect opportunity for Qiu to strike. His parry was met in a clash of steel, pushed hard against until neither could offer more resistance, and then rolled away. They each spun, stepping back, breathing hard. 

‘How many does that make it?’

Qiu retook his stance. ‘Fourteen, by my last count. Zheng An included. There’ll be more, of course, once their influence trickles down to their contacts.’ He added: ‘Rumour has started.’

He Cheng let Qiu circle him, their gaze matched constantly, but He Cheng was no prey. Qiu circled him only to wait for the strike. 

‘Good or bad rumour?’ He Cheng asked. 

_In my favour or theirs?_

‘I don’t think rumours are ever good, He Cheng.’

He Cheng lifted a brow. ‘Depends who starts them.’

Qiu inclined his head. _Touché._

‘Should I be concerned?’ He Cheng asked. _Do I need to run before I’ve even started?_

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

A testing strike, closely avoided. Qiu stepped back, and let He Cheng circle once again.

‘And these rumours… Have they reached _him_ yet?’ _Will my father come knocking on my door?_

‘I can’t be sure. If they have, he won’t know it’s you. There’s a storm coming, but lightning can strike in a lot of places.’ Qiu shrugged. ‘Besides, there’s only talk of some division. Some of those who are impartial are preparing to move south to avoid culpability—or death.’

‘The non-partisan,’ He Cheng snorted. ‘Cowards.’

Qiu frowned. ‘You sound like your father.’

He Cheng hesitated, correcting himself. ‘You’re right. They have families.’ He chewed on the inside of his cheek. ‘I cannot force people into this—they have to choose it.’

Another flurry of strikes, and Qiu found himself forced back. He Cheng’s brow was furrowed, his face deep in thought—his movements determined. Qiu knew that was his strength—where others underestimated him. He gave the impression of having his mind elsewhere, on greater things, and not directly on what was in front of him. He Cheng could parry and plan his _lèse-majesté_ with simultaneous effect. 

For another hour, Qiu took the blows. He felt his arms starting to ache, but let He Cheng lead the onslaught with little resistance. Qiu narrowed his eyes, realising what was happening: He Cheng was playing out the attack against his father in his head, exacting political intricacies and closed-door conversations through his sword. Qiu, breathing hard, let him work.

The clash of steel rang out. Qiu’s arms and thighs trembled. They were near-even in strength; He Cheng could go for hours. Qiu swallowed this realisation and held up. 

Another hour, fighting until darkness fell on the courtyard, and He Cheng let his sword drop to his side, the pointed end of it spearing the ground. Sweat glistened on his face, and he drew in a long breath. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t a fair fight.’

Qiu shrugged. ‘Better me than someone else.’

He Cheng huffed, rolling his eyes. 

They left together for the baths. Qiu checked the rooms for unseen intruders, then had the quiet pleasure of watching He Cheng’s shoulders roll away the strain as he unfastened the leather buckles on his training clothes. He admired the brawny width of his shoulders, the solid muscle of his thighs and buttocks, the mass of coppery skin flecked with dust and dirt, curiously soft to the touch. 

The bathing room was a small, windowless enclosure of wooden floor and walls, steam running down the oak slats, oil lamps flickering in glass fixtures along the wall. A huge square bath was built into the middle of the room, the water dark and still hot, embers not long extinguished from a furnace room below. He Cheng hissed through his teeth as he set foot in the bath, and Qiu lingered by the pile of clean clothing that had been set on a wooden bench around the edge of the dark room. 

He paused. 

‘Aren’t you getting in?’ He Cheng murmured from the bath, eyes closed. The base of his skull rested against the edge of the bath, long arms framed around him. The picture of him could be no more enticing, but Qiu’s attention stuttered elsewhere—just for a moment.

He picked up the piece of black card that peeked out from beneath He Cheng’s clean clothing. 

Behind him, he heard the slosh of water. 

‘What is it?’ He Cheng asked. ‘Qiu, what is it?’

‘It’s a note.’

‘From who?’

Qiu turned to him. ‘He Tian’s fiancée.’

He Cheng frowned, having moved to the front of the bath. His hands braced the edge, as if he was preparing to lift himself back out. 

‘Mo Guan Shan?’ he asked. 

‘No,’ Qiu said, shaking his head. The small card felt heavy between his fingers. ‘The Drow princess,’ he said. ‘She wants to meet you.’


	6. Chapter 6

They collapsed onto each other in a pile with Li Shuang groaning beneath them. Above, the sky was blue with morning light, and Guan Shan could smell the sea. He Tian’s knee dug into his back; he could hear Li Shuang swearing as she tried to shift Jian Yi’s particularly pointed elbow from her side. 

‘ _Paras_ built with bones like _knife_ ,’ she grunted, extracting him with a shove that sent him flailing to one side and thumping into the pebbled sand. The next layered body was Nijena, whose feathered head pressed firmly against Li Shuang’s chest. 

‘Is okay, little angel,’ Li Shuang croaked, patting her chest. ‘You stay here if you like.’

Nijena made a strange sound and stumbled to her feet, her hands held out in front of her as if she were about to fall, her expression dazed. 

Guan Shan knew how she felt. He sat up, blinking. 

Sand. 

A sky bright with a new day. 

Had they skipped time? He looked around him. There was no portal, no glowing light, no stench of Drow magic that burned the air like singed hair and burnt nails. Instead, there was only the shallow cove that stretched across to a port filling more coastline than Guan Shan could see. 

They’d made it. 

Port Axle.

He Tian had brought them here—and he was staring up at the tip of Zhengxi’s pointed paladin sword. Guan Shan shot to his feet.

‘The fuck do you—’

 _‘Tell us what the hell that was,’_ Zhengxi growled, ignoring Guan Shan and shouldering him off. 

Everyone else had gone still, watching. 

He Tian simply stared up at Zhengxi. He sat up, slowly, his weight balanced on his palms, and Zhengxi withdrew just enough to stop the blade slicing through He Tian’s throat. 

‘That was me,’ said He Tian, pitching forward slightly, ‘saving us from…’ 

He Tian fell silent.

A bead of blood slid down his throat. Guan Shan stared at it. 

Zhengxi had drawn blood from the Prince of the North Kingdom. 

Guan Shan, surely, was going to have to kill him.

He Tian held up a hand, and whatever momentum Guan Shan had started to let himself be led by came to a halt. He held himself still. He Tian could handle this himself: if he was gutted on that sword, it was because he intended to be. Guan Shan had never seen Zhan Zhengxi fight—a bar brawl didn’t count—but he had seen He Tian fight. 

‘I’ll tell you what that was if you get that sword out my face,’ said He Tian.

‘I need an incentive,’ said Zhengxi, narrowing his eyes. ‘You nearly got Jian—You nearly got us _all_ killed by those creatures.’

‘Xixi…’ Jian Yi pressed quietly. ‘Just let him talk.’

A tense moment passed, then Zhengxi dropped the blade until it swung to a still at his side, a falling dead weight paused between the pinched hold of two fingertips. He hung his head, and Guan Shan was the only one to hear He Tian’s quiet exhalation of relief. 

He Tian said, ‘They’re following me because I broke a deal.’

It was Li Shuang who spoke, still sitting in the sand, her eyes narrowed: ‘What kind of _de-el_?’

‘Not one made by me,’ said He Tian without hesitation. ‘My father.’

‘Your father talk to _Drow?’_

‘I would hope so. He rules the land above them.’

Silence.

Jian Yi’s boot collided with the ground in a spray of shingle and sand. ‘ _I knew it!’_ he shouted.

‘He did an awful job at hiding it,’ Zhengxi muttered, rolling his eyes. Then he paused. Tightly, he said, ‘I threatened the North Kingdom prince.’

‘You are supposed to be dead,’ said Nijena with narrowed eyes. 

He Tian spread his hands. ‘And yet.’

‘Wait,’ Li Shuang piped up. ‘Weaver _paras_ is _prince_?’

‘The very same,’ said He Tian.

Zhan Zhengxi swore under his breath. He stabbed his sword into the ground in defeat, then leaned heavily onto it. He looked tired. The bright coastal light made them all washed out, bruises heavy and on open display beneath their eyes. There was a touch of soreness each time Guan Shan blinked, and his throat was scratchy with dryness.

‘So your father—Emperor of the North Kingdom—’ Jian Yi swallowed. ‘All of this was his doing?’

‘I was due to marry a Drow princess,’ He Tian told him carefully. ‘By leaving Moryo, I have forfeited those plans and spat in my father’s face. In theirs too.’

‘And now they kill you,’ Li Shuang guessed. She had her knees drawn up in the sand, an arm slung lazily around her shins while another hand trialed mindlessly in the rough wet sand. Around them were fragments of broken shells, small rocks, and brown pieces of shattered glass bottles.

He Tian nodded, eyes moving to each attentive member of his audience. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘They’re trying to kill me—on my father’s orders.’

Jian Yi’s eyes widened. ‘You think he would do that?’

Guan Shan snorted. ‘You’re surprised. Guess that makes you lucky.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jian Yi asked.

‘You live a life where you think the man’s not capable of killin’ his own son.’

‘But why? Why would he do that?’

He Tian frowned. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.’

‘He held a funeral for a prince who never died,’ Guan Shan murmured. The thought had occurred to him the night before, in the small in on the other side of the island, while sleep tried to escape him. ‘It’d bring too much shame if it turned out you were alive.’

He Tian glanced at him. ‘You think that’s all? But he would still need me for—’ He glanced briefly at the others. ‘—the rest of it.’

_Breaking the dragons’ boundary lines._

‘Maybe…’ Guan Shan chewed on his lip. ‘Maybe he’s not what we think.’

He Tian quirked a brow in question, and Guan Shan continued.

‘Maybe he really isn’t tryin’ to kill you. But maybe the Drow…’ He shook his head and started again: ‘If the Drow succeed in killin’ you, they’ve got reason to overthrow Moryo and take it for themselves. You’d be dead, and they’d take your father next. Maybe they’re glad you left—gives them reason to try and kill you themselves and blame your father for not holdin’ up his end of the bargain. You can scold a wayward prince and put him in chains ‘til he does your biddin’, but there’s not much your father can do about a dead one.’

‘You’re _defending_ my father now?’ He Tian asked. He wasn’t angry, but bemused. 

‘Stranger things’ve happened,’ Guan Shan muttered, feeling eyes start to tighten with suspicion. ‘There’s a lotta stuff you’ve left out.’

‘The portal,’ said Nijena slowly, locking her hands behind her. ‘Start there. The He family line has no power. I have been curious about that.’

‘You said there was someone else,’ Guan Shan said, staring at He Tian. ‘What were you talkin’ about? Who?’

He Tian grimaced, and Guan Shan felt a strange twisting in his stomach. He hadn’t wanted this audience for He Tian’s revelation. He’d wanted the two of them—a shared moment of truth and honesty. Instead, he felt small and alone. He Tian was handing out his truths like a broken mirror, and Guan Shan received only one fractured shard. 

‘When I fled Moryo, I encountered a sorceress who—needed a host body. I had little choice in the matter. I thought my father’s men were going to kill me, and she helped me escape.’

Gulls circled overhead. Guan Shan could hear the sound of the sea rushing through his ears. 

‘The sorceress from the ruins,’ he said tightly. 

He Tian nodded. 

‘And she’s—Is she still— _there?’_

‘Somewhere,’ He Tian replied. 

Guan Shan glanced over as Li Shuang slowly got to her feet, brushing the wet shingle from her clothes. She took a step towards He Tian, and then another. Guan Shan saw the flashing glimpse of a glass shard in her large hand—a piece of broken bottle.

‘You bring _demon_ here?’ Li Shuang demanded, her voice lower than Guan Shan had ever heard. Her eyes were murderous. She spat onto the sand, and ground it in with the toe of her boot. ‘You bring _witch_ among us?’

‘She means no harm,’ He Tian told her calmly, unbothered by her threats. ‘She was the one who opened the portal for us. She saved me in the woods when the Drow threatened both me and Guan Shan.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Indeed, she has saved me many times.’ When Li Shaung took another step, he scoffed. ‘Don’t bother, orc. You aren’t a hypocrite. You didn’t kill Nijena when she was possessed by the Drow’s magic, and you won’t kill me.’

‘I will decide that,’ Li Shuang growled, but she didn’t take another step. He Tian was right: whoever the sorcerer was, she had done much for all of them. 

‘What does she want?’ Jian Yi piped up, his brow drawn together. ‘This… sorceress. Does she want reincarnation? It’s a dangerous business to meddle with the dead. There’s not a single book at the Imperial College that suggests it ends happily.’

‘She isn’t dead,’ He Tian told him. ‘She was destroyed.’

Jian Yi’s frown deepened. ‘A spirit with no body—bound to the ruins where you found her?’

‘That’s right.’

‘The story sounds familiar…’ Jian Yi murmured. ‘What’s her name? Can we speak with her?’

He Tian chuckled darkly. ‘I can certainly ask—’

‘Don’t,’ said Guan Shan.

They all looked at him.

He hadn’t meant to say it. He had meant to bite his tongue and let this play out how it must. He’d wanted to know, hadn’t he? He’d wanted to know everything. But the possibility of hearing that voice, seeing those eyes—seeing He Tian but un-He Tian. Changed, newly made, worsened. It made Guan Shan feel sick. The sensation felt like, if he were to look away from un-He Tian for one moment, he might have the real one returned. It wasn’t a risk he wanted to take.

‘We don’t need to speak with her,’ Guan Shan muttered.

He Tian considered him for a long moment, then inclined his head. ‘Very well,’ he said. He turned to Jian Yi. ‘Her name is Meilín. She said she was—’

‘Oh,’ said Jian Yi. He had gone even paler. ‘We have records of her.’

‘Who was she?’ Zhengxi asked. 

Jian Yi wet his lips. ‘One of the first sorcerers to use dark magic outside of the Drow,’ he said. ‘She was the companion to an emissary for the dragons, but—’

‘And now she lives in prince,’ said Li Shaung. The half-orc scoffed. ‘So stupid. So _stupid._ We are all cursed!’

‘Li Shuang,’ Nijena murmured, settling a hand on the half-orc’s shoulder. ‘There may be more to this than we know.’ She turned to He Tian. ‘Can she act at any time? What does she want?’

‘I have to grant permission,’ He Tian told her. ‘She’s weak—weaker still to be in the body of a man who doesn’t have magic of his own. So far, she has only asked that I take her to Longdì, and nothing more.’

‘What does she want with the dragons?’ Zhengxi asked suspiciously. ‘Is she a threat? If you make any attack there with her overpowering you—you’ll end up killing us all for committing treason.’

‘I only know that she’s helped me—helped _all_ of us. We owe her something.’

Li Shuang leaned back and made a sound of disgust. Zhan Zhengxi’s blue-eyed gaze had gone cold. Guan Shan didn’t blame them, but the hurt ran deeper than any anger, a welting scar that he knew would take time to heal.

‘There are so many unknown variables,’ Jian Yi said quietly. ‘If we could only speak with her—’

‘ _I said no,’_ Guan Shan snapped.

Jian Yi looked away guiltily, and Guan Shan breathed out steadily through his mouth. His breath shook. He pinned his eyes on He Tian.

‘Why couldn’t you just tell me?’ Guan Shan asked him. ‘Why’d you keep it from me?’

He Tian’s expression tightened. ‘I never meant to hurt you. I thought it would be for the best if no one knew.’

‘You thought you could fuckin’ hide it.’

‘That’s not—’

‘How much of you has been her? How do I even know who the fuck I’m talkin’ to?’

Jian Yi stepped forward as if to say something, but Zhengxi held him back, passing a warning glance. This wasn’t their place. Guan Shan hadn’t meant to drag this outside in front of everyone, but they had a right to some of it, too. This journey had bound them.

‘You know when it’s me,’ said He Tian, holding Guan Shan’s gaze with such intensity he wanted to look away. ‘You know.’

Guan Shan’s lip curled. ‘Do I?’

‘Every time you asked about my eyes there was some part of her in my head, but for the rest of it—it was all me, Mo Guan Shan.’

Guan Shan did look away this time—towards the port, which was steadily filling with ships, cargo, and passengers. He watched as a long, sleek vessel came into port, a luxury liner made of fine oak and redwood, its flag unfamiliar. Some small, rich island off Axle’s archipelago coastline, perhaps. Somewhere in the port, they would find a ferry to take them to Longdì, and then they could return home to the North Kingdom and all of this would be over.

Something panged in Guan Shan’s chest. He missed his mother. He missed what they’d been, he and He Tian standing before the forge, no complications, when He Tian had been only a young prince who didn’t listen to his father. 

He caught He Tian’s eye again. ‘You lied to me,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t even know what _you_ are.’

///

He Tian stared as Guan Shan walked away and headed for the pathway. It was a wooden coastal path that He Tian assumed snaked all the way into the centre of the port, Guan Shan’s boots a heavy drum against the planks. Li Shuang and Nijena left to follow him shortly after.

_I don’t even know what you are._

‘He’ll come around.’

He Tian blinked. A hand was extended towards him, and He Tian took it, allowing the paladin to help him to his feet. He brushed the sand from his clothes, and nodded at Zhengxi. 

‘Thank you,’ said He Tian. 

They began walking in silence after the others, Jian Yi a little ahead, and Zhengxi cleared his throat from He Tian’s side.

‘I know what it is like—to try and protect someone and hurt them while doing it. He’ll come around.’

He Tian glanced at Zhan Zhengxi. _You had your sword at my throat a moment ago,_ he thought. _What’s changed?_

‘Perhaps,’ was all He Tian replied, and they said nothing more.

 _I am surprised,_ spoke Meilín in the silence. _They know of me, and have not abandoned you completely. Worthy companions._

He Tian frowned. _You expected them to kill me?_ he asked her. _Is that what you would’ve rathered?_

 _That would be a waste,_ she replied simply. When He Tian didn’t reply, she said, _Your lover… Should I communicate with him through you? Put his concerns at ease?_

 _I think he’s concerned enough,_ said He Tian silently. _I need you to lay quietly for a while. The Drow won’t know where we’ve gone; you won’t be needed for some time._

_It would not take a skilled hunter to make an educated guess._

_Perhaps not, but it gives us some time. This could all be over in a few days._

Meilín went quiet, and He Tian only had to press tenderly at the walls of his own mind to know she was still there. Thinking. It made He Tian uneasy to realise there was a whole other being inside of him—how did she think? Did she feel? Was everything he felt hers, and vice versa? Was she using his brain to process her own thoughts, and were they compromised by his own? 

He was thinking too much—too many questions. 

The real one was this: how much of what Guan Shan had said was true?

 _You don’t want to tell me the answer to that, do you?_ He Tian asked Meilín.

 _It isn’t a question of want,_ she replied after a moment. _I simply don’t know it. I have never occupied the body of another before._

_Oh, good. At least neither of us know what we’re doing._

He thought he heard her smile, and then he asked: _What is it that you want? Once we get to Longdì? Were the others right? Should I be worried?_

 _About what, in particular?_ Meilín replied, her tone dry. _My using you as a vessel for treason? The young warlock might have been right—I was indeed powerful once—but not enough to kill a dragon. Not now._

_Will you try?_

_I have no quarrel with the dragons. They are irrelevant._

_Then why Longdì?_ He Tian asked. A minute passed. _Meilín?_ he said, but she had gone. 

He Tian frowned to himself. He had never been to the dragon lands before—he knew nothing of the place except from drawings and recollections from travellers and dignitaries who visited Sengōng and were granted an audience before his father. His brother had been once; the trip had lasted a few weeks, and He Tian had not been granted permission to go with him. 

‘Were you speaking with her?’ Zhengxi asked quietly. 

Around them, the scenery had begun to change: they passed small wooden row boats tied to the boardwalk, ranging in size and well-being. Some were sanded and oiled to a sheen with kerosene, others were splintered and giving way to algae and rot. They grew larger the further they walked: fishing boats evolving into small merchant ships and taxi boats, larger cargo vessels rivaling private yachts. To their left, Axle’s verdant hills stretched upwards into rainforest, looking down onto a glistening turquoise sea and blue domed mansions studded like sapphires in the hills. 

He Tian didn’t know who was richer—those who lived on land or ship.

He looked to Zhengxi, whose question still went unanswered. ‘You could tell?’ he asked. 

Zhengxi nodded. ‘You looked far off, as if you weren’t here. Your eyes grew a little darker, too. Is she listening to us now?’

_He Tian—Your eyes—_

‘No. She’s gone.’

Zhengxi frowned. ‘How can you be sure?’

He Tian shrugged. ‘Instinct, I suppose. And a healthy dose of wishful thinking.’

Zhengxi only shook his head. ‘You said that you found this— _Meilín_ —when you were trying to flee after hearing about your arranged marriage. Why did you run?’

He Tian sighed.

Up ahead, he could make out the purple hair and huge shoulders of Li Shuang as she made her way through the port, and then, a little ahead of her, was Guan Shan. The pathways were crowded with strong-armed men and women tugging cargo and livestock back and forth. 

Further along, the pathways grew more ornate, a wooden boardwalk giving way to smooth white cobblestones bordered by flower beds in peak bloom, tall oil lamps hung with wicker baskets. Li Shuang’s head ducked beneath an archway painted red with bougainvillea. The smell of pollen was thick in the air, mingling sickly-sweet with the aroma of the sea and caught fish and unwashed bodies.

To their right, further inland, He Tian could see the tall watchtowers that abutted from the ground like beacons the whole length of the port. If he narrowed his eyes, he could see the uniformed figures standing behind the glass walls in the nearest tower, port guards dressed in red livery peering down on the movements of the people down below, their pockets heavy with coin.

He Tian looked away. He said, ‘My father had arranged for me to marry a member of Drow royalty. I was not in a position to refuse, so…’

‘So you ran.’

He Tian didn’t know what Zhan Zhengxi thought of his decision. It had been a matter of instinct at the time, but now he considered that it might be seen as weakness to another—as shirking his duties and his birthright. To a paladin, for whom honour was everything, He Tian was probably a coward.

‘I had asked for Guan Shan’s hand,’ He Tian told him. ‘My life, I had hoped, would be his.’

‘Did he say no?’ Zhengxi asked, his eyes ahead of him, trained on the back of Jian Yi’s white-blond head.

He Tian smiled thinly. ‘He said something to the effect of _not yet._ There were protocols to follow. He had more care for them than I.’

‘Right,’ Zhengxi muttered. ‘Because you’re second-in-line to the North Kingdom.’

‘You knew already, didn’t you?’

‘I’d thought, but—it didn’t seem plausible. There were reports of your death and when we met in Gangling you were without a retinue. I hardly thought…’ He shook his head. After a minute of hesitation he said, ‘I understand.’

‘Which part?’

‘Why you ran.’

He Tian followed his gaze to Jian Yi, and nodded.

They followed the group in silence.

///

‘... sightings, a few close captures—but he has escaped us for now.’

‘How does a young ingenue without any magic escape a band of Drow hunters for almost a month?’

‘It seems he has some help. My king is curious to know how he fled the boundaries of your own kingdom without your capture.’

He Cheng’s father smiled thinly. ‘It seems he had some help.’

From behind the doors to his father’s chambers, He Cheng swallowed away the tightness in his throat. There was a Drow standing before his father, their body wiry and spider-like, their features alien. 

Was it really possible that they had shared the same blood once? He couldn’t recall a time in recent history that a Drow had set foot in the palace without attempting to start a war.

His head reeled: the rumours were true. What he had told Mo Guan Shan before he left wasn’t a falsehood. His father was meeting with Drow hunters and he had hired one to collect his son. 

_Collect him or kill him?_

He Cheng’s hands had tightened to fists at his sides; he forced himself to unclench them. Was this how He Tian’s death-sentence began? Listening to conversations at doors he wasn’t supposed to be privy to, the stench of betrayal colouring the air?

There was movement in the chambers, and He Cheng stepped back as the door suddenly swung open. The Drow did not seem surprised to see him there, and He Cheng did not hide his revulsion at the sight of them. They _smiled._

‘Your Highness,’ the Drow murmured, their voice raspy, and the breeze that followed in their wake as they brushed past was cold. They turned a corner—there was a _pop_ sound—and then they were gone.

He Cheng caught his father’s discontented stare from inside the chambers. He was a huge, imposing man, but He Cheng thought for the first time that he looked as if he had aged. The doors boomed shut behind him as he stepped inside.

‘Eavesdropping, He Cheng?’ He Jun asked coldly. 

‘You have one last chance, Father,’ He Cheng muttered, walking in. ‘End this. Cease whatever deals you have made with them. You have already lost one son.’

‘But he can still be found. He is not dead.’ He Jun smiled. ‘But you knew that, my son.’

‘Do you wish that he was?’ He Cheng countered. ‘This is getting messy for you.’

His father snorted. ‘Messy? This is nothing.’

He Cheng pressed further. ‘You’ve made a deal you can’t uphold, Father. You should have sent Qiu to clean up after you—not the Drow. They’ll hold this against you.’ He Cheng’s mouth pressed into a thin line. ‘More fool you for thinking He Tian would be an easy piece to play with.’

The emperor laughed, a dark, rumbling sound like a cave ready to fall in. He walked to one of the alcoved glass doors, which led out onto a balcony. From the platform He Jun could peer down onto the entrance of the palace and, further down, to the streets of Sengōng. He Jun’s rooms stretched the breadth of the palace, and from the windows in his bed chambers he would have a view of the barracks and the forests that stretched up towards the mountains.

He Jun’s gaze was set on Sengōng’s terracotta skyline when he said, ‘More fool you, my son, for thinking this has not played out how I intended.’

He Cheng narrowed his eyes. ‘How you intended?’ _Impossible,_ he thought. There were too many variables—the odds were against his father in too many ways. He was bluffing, surely. He Cheng shook his head. ‘They cannot be trusted, Father. On this, you’ve made a mistake. Planned or not, you have gone too far.’

‘If you have come here only to listen at the doors of your emperor and give your unasked-for opinion, you may leave.’

He Cheng opened his mouth, then shut it. He nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said, and left his father standing there alone. Qiu would be at the barracks, and He Cheng would find him there and give him his answer.

 _Thank the princess for her letter,_ he would say. _Tell her I accept._

///

The port was no quieter at night. The market closed by late afternoon, allowing for crew to clean ships and change hands before sundown, a huge peach-coloured disc setting low on the horizon. The main boardwalk was wet with soapy water and the scritching of hard-bristled brushes grated on Guan Shan’s skin. 

He’d asked for directions from the innkeeper whose rooms they occupied, and set off while the shadows were beginning to grow long and the cobbled streets began to bustle with early tavern-goers and gamblers and men and women looking for a quick theft of rapture before their ship set sail again at dawn.

He found the commissioner’s office an hour later, a sturdy looking structure with balustrades and a balcony on the second floor, and a golden plaque shone to a gleam on the front door, kept open to reveal a large hall where shielded wooden booths stood against the entire back wall.

There were others inside, each booth occupied, a small queue forming in the middle of the hall, tieflings and elves and humans grasping papers tightly in their hands, handing over reluctant pouches of coin. Guan Shan watched as a tiefling couple paid their fare and were given a small pamphlet by the dwarf on the other side of the wooden counter, tickets and taxes accounted for. Every fisherman, merchant, and passenger had to come into the office: there would be no underhand passing of coin to any captain before sail, or they’d lose their ship. 

He didn’t have to wait long. The line moved quickly, and Guan Shan stepped forward as one of the booths opened up, and he was motioned forward. 

‘Business or pleasure?’ asked the dwarf, without looking up from her ledger.

‘Business,’ Guan Shan replied uncertainly. 

‘You have a permit?’

Guan Shan hesitated. He glanced to the side of the wall, where a notice had been pinned. His eyes scanned the writing. Permits were to be paid for in advance at the beginning of the year for an eye-watering fee, and allowed for reduced fares and tax exemptions. 

‘Pleasure, I guess,’ he said. 

The dwarf glanced up at him, scratching a quill against the paper. ‘Destination?’

‘Longdì.’

She stopped writing. A pair of bright grey eyes flicked up towards him. ‘You have an invitation?’

‘Didn’t know I needed one,’ Guan Shan said. ‘Do I?’

The clerk took a moment before responding. ‘You don’t need one to board the ship, but they’ll turn you away at the gates if you haven’t got an invitation or reasonable cause to visit.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘You can take the risk, but the captain isn’t responsible for bringing you back.’

‘So they leave you there?’

‘It’s at their discretion. You must arrange for a return passage there. It’s how things are done.’ 

Guan Shan’s mind worked fast. Nijena had reasonable cause—she was acting on behalf of the courts. Jian Yi and Zhengxi, too, would be permitted entry, with a letter of authority from the South Kingdom. But what did He Tian and Guan Shan have? Would He Tian’s coronet or sword be enough to request entry and prove himself? The North Kingdom had declared his death—to the guards at Longdì, he would be considered an impostor.

‘When does the next ship leave?’

‘The day after tomorrow,’ the dwarf replied. She raised her eyebrows, her eyes flicking to the queue of other people behind him. _Well?_

‘Passage for six, then,’ he said, and supplied each of their names.

Her eyebrows lifted higher. ‘Wait here,’ she said, sliding from her seat. ‘The commissioner has to approve this.’

Guan Shan watched her leave, disappearing through a small door behind her. Guan Shan counted the minutes under his breath in her absence, and when the door finally opened it was not the dwarf who appeared, but an elf dressed in red livery. A gold badge in the shape of a blazing sun was pinned to his chest.

Guan Shan took half a step back. 

The man’s yellow gaze froze on his for a second. Neither of them said a word until a strange smile began to wrap itself around the man’s lips. There was something impossibly familiar about it, and Guan Shan couldn’t shake it. His skin was coppery as a tanned woodland elf, but his silver hair made Guan Shan pause—at a glance, he might be mistaken for a Drow. How had an elf secured one of the highest positions on the dwarf’s island? 

‘Hello,’ said the commissioner. Long fingers plucked the sheaf of papers from the ledger and glanced over them. ‘I hear you’re making the journey to Longdì, Mo Guan Shan.’

‘Your clerk said I was allowed if I wanted to go.’

‘Yes, it’s not a problem,’ the man hummed. He glanced up. ‘It’s quite the risk. We generally advise against it.’

‘But you’re happy to take my money for the fare.’

A serpentine smile. 

Guan Shan frowned. ‘Do I know you?’ 

‘I couldn’t tell you that,’ said the commissioner, beginning to gather documents on the other side of the desk. ‘I see a thousand new faces every day.’

Guan Shan watched as the commissioner slid open a small glass window on the counter, a square opening between them only large enough for a hand to fit through. He retrieved the coin pouch he kept on the underside of his fitted vest, the leather warm against his skin, and looked at the commissioner, who was staring at him.

Guan Shan winced when he handed over the coin, still unused to parting with such a large sum. He’d volunteered to fetch the tickets for each of them, needing something to set his mind to, and Nijena and Zhan Zhengxi had promised to pay him back later. With deliberate slowness, the yellow-eyed commissioner handed across six stamped tickets and a receipt of purchase.

‘Wait at the entrance,’ the man said, pointing to the front of the hall. ‘I will show you where you’re meant to embark.’

Guan Shan hesitated. His eyes lingered on the gold badge. ‘You can just tell me,’ he said. ‘Don’t wanna waste your time.’

The man shrugged. ‘I like to on occasion. And I have business along the docks. Wait there.’

When the commissioner disappeared through the same door he had come through, Guan Shan turned on his heel and strode quickly towards the entrance of the hall. The hall had emptied as night approached, but the streets outside were choked with people. Guan Shan barely made it three paces into the throng before the commissioner reached his side. 

‘You’re going the wrong way,’ he said, smiling tightly. He had a firm grip on Guan Shan’s arm. ‘Follow me.’

The commissioner’s hand dropped, and Guan Shan, with a tight feeling in his throat, resigned himself to following. 

He startled. 

‘Your neck—’ he said, staring at the back of the man’s head. Where his neck met his shoulders beneath the short crop of silvery strands, Guan Shan could see a strip of mottled scarring like a frayed rope. Guan Shan bit his tongue. ‘Forgive me, Commissioner—’

The man chuckled, unbothered, though the fingertips of his right hand brushed absently across the back of his neck, feeling for its strange indent. His hand dropped.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’ve had it most of my life.’

‘From someone in the port?’ Guan Shan asked.

The man paused, and then said, ‘No. I spent my childhood in Longdì with the orcs. I got lucky with a _sapat._ ’

 _An axe,_ thought Guan Shan, remembering Li Shuang using the word.

‘Lucky?’ Guan Shan echoed. 

The commissioner smiled. ‘I still have my head, do I not?’

Guan Shan swallowed. ‘So you were born in Longdì?’

‘Raised there,’ the man corrected. Guan Shan noticed how the crowds parted for him, whether consciously or not. Other port guards bowed low in the man’s direction, and more than one docksman palmed the commissioner a coin which he added to a full pouch at his hip. ‘My parents took me there when I was young—died there, too. They were merchants from Sengōng. I came to Axle seeking calmer waters.’

‘And you fell into the commissioner’s role?’ Guan Shan’s voice dropped lower. ‘The dwarves let you?’

The commissioner didn’t smile, but his eyes took on a sharp, humoured quality. ‘Here, no one _lets_ a man do anything. If you do not take it, it will never be yours.’

They came to a stop before an empty docking bay, indistinguishable from the rest. It was one of the only bays Guan Shan could see without a ship or member of crew standing to attention, and there were no markings along the wooden posts hammered into the jetty. It was quiet here, and the commissioner did not have to raise his voice to speak above the crowds.

‘This is where you will embark. The ship is moored out in the waters to avoid stowaways coming aboard at night.’

‘Not that it would matter,’ Guan Shan guessed. ‘They’d be imprisoned once they got there.’

The commissioner’s gaze slid to his. ‘We take precautions, Mo Guan Shan.’ His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘What business takes you and five others to Longdì?’

Guan Shan’s spine straightened. ‘Why? Have I gotta disclose that to you?’

‘Curiosity is my only fault.’

Guan Shan bit down on his tongue. He had the lingering sense that the man had few virtues. He held the tickets tightly in his hand. 

‘We’re just—seekin’ counsel.’

The commissioner quirked a brow. ‘And you expect to be granted an audience?’

‘Guess I’ll find out, won’t I?’

The commissioner made a ‘hm’ sound, then inclined his head. ‘I wish you luck with your journey,’ he said. ‘It would be a shame to see you brought back through Axle in chains.’

Gritting his teeth, Guan Shan bowed his head. He held his breath until the commissioner wandered back along the jetty and disappeared into the parting evening crowd, watching his silver head drift away like the sliver of moon dropping behind a cloud. 

///

‘He’s in a party of six. An Aasimar, a half-orc. Two high elves. The woodland smithy—and the prince.’

‘They bought passage from your offices? Tell us where.’

She Li lifted his brows. ‘You expect that information for a few gold coins.’ He turned to leave. ‘Excuse me, I have a port to oversee.’

‘Wait.’

She Li curled his lip at the hand on his arm, the spindly, purplish fingers of the Drow like needles, his nails filed to long sharp points. After a minute, the Drow removed its hand. 

The office was dark, having closed some hours ago. He could hear movement around the port on the other side of the walls, the shouting of mariners and tourists, and a dull clanging that couldn’t permeate the walls and would quieten in a few hours. An oil lamp flickered on She Li’s desk, and their shadows were long on the floor.

She Li leaned in close.

‘I gain _nothing_ by giving you this. I gain _nothing_ by withholding it.’ He sneered. ‘Make it worth my while.’

‘You want coin?’

She Li pulled a face. ‘The captains ply me with enough of that. I want what you want: information.’

The Drow frowned. ‘We cannot—’

‘Tell me what you know of his companion.’

The Drow paused. ‘The redhead?’

She Li nodded. ‘He paid for their fare. I will tell you the destination if you tell me what you know of him.’

The Drow’s beetle-like eyes considered She Li for a moment, weighing something, considering his white hair and strange features—as if recognising something of himself in them—before nodding. 

‘His name is Mo Guan Shan. He has been the prince’s companion since boyhood—they are steadfast.’

‘He has given his hand?’

‘I don’t believe so. He is the Royal Smith. It would have been publicly proclaimed by the palace if there was such a union. Were he of any lower station it would’ve been thwarted by Emperor He Jun long ago.’

‘The Royal Smith,’ She Li murmured. ‘Like his father.’

The Drow’s head turned slightly, assessing. ‘You know him already.’

‘As boys. He has no recollection of me.’

‘And the prince?’

She Li shrugged. ‘I never met him. I went with my parents to Hàndì—Mo Guan Shan’s father joined us. He hoped to sell weapons to the orcs when war loomed on the lands.’

‘Mo Guan Shan’s father did not return from that voyage,’ said the Drow, piecing the tale together. He knew more than She Li expected him to. ‘Is that where they are going? Hàndì, to recover his father?’

‘I didn’t say his father was alive,’ said She Li. 

The Drow made a clicking sound in the back of his throat, irritated. ‘Then where? Where will they go? Do they hope to take refuge off the isles of Axle?’

‘I believe they’ve got their hopes set higher than that,’ She Li mused. ‘Have you not thought where an Aasimar might be delivering a half-orc pirate for justice?’

It took a moment, and then the Drow straightened. ‘Longdì,’ he said flatly. 

She Li smiled. ‘Right into the dragons’ lair.’

‘They will never be permitted an audience.’

‘I suppose they’ll find out, won’t they?’ She Li said. 

He saw Guan Shan’s face in his mind's eye, so determined, so forthright. He was not the boy She Li remembered from the hazy memories of youth. He had become something else. Something She Li would’ve liked to savour, cutting up into small pieces to enjoy on his tongue one singular bite at a time. The knife would have to be sharp. 

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘The Aasimar and the high elf pair I can perhaps understand—but what reason does the prince have to seek the dragons’ council?’

The Drow was only half-listening to him. His mind was set on Longdì, on the prince’s travels there. A consideration of impending disaster. Curious. When his dark eyes finally returned to She Li’s, they were brimming with contempt. He spat on the floor, and the air felt charged.

The Drow’s voice was a low growl. ‘There is not a single thing that you could hope to offer in return for that information.’

And then, in a blink, he was gone.

In his wake, standing in the shadowed office, Commissioner She Li smiled to himself. He ran a thumbnail along his lower lip. _Nothing?_ he thought. No, if he had come to understand anything, it was that there was always something.

///

The door to He Tian’s bedchamber was closed when Guan Shan stood before it. He had approached it quietly, but the inn’s staircase betrayed him by creaking when he climbed its shallow steps, low-set and allowing Guan Shan’s long legs to take them three at a time.

The inn was set a little more inland than they had hoped for, but the distance dampened the cacophony of the port that continued into the night. It was a loud din against the rush of waves and wind, which came easily through tall, unglazed windows set along the hallways of the inn. The inn’s rooms stayed cool and bright through the day as a result, but Guan Shan suspected there were enchantments in place to keep out insects, evening chill, and the regular threat of a storm. 

Still, Guan Shan must have been heard. Before he could decide whether to knock or leave, He Tian opened the door. 

‘I heard you come,’ said He Tian, hesitating in the doorway. 

Guan Shan swallowed. ‘Didn’t meant to wake you,’ he muttered, eyes darting between He Tian’s mussed dark hair and the bruising shadows beneath his eyes. He was still dressed in his leathers.

‘I wasn’t sleeping,’ said He Tian. ‘Come in.’

He shut the door behind them both, and Guan Shan eyed the unslept-in bed and the dent of a human body atop the sheets. A paneless window across from the bed overlooked the port and sea; there was only a slight lip to it from the floor, making it disconcertingly easy for someone to walk out and fall down to the streets—or for another to climb their way in.

‘It’s enchanted,’ said He Tian, following his gaze. ‘No entry in or out.’

Guan Shan’s eyes flashed to him in alarm. Had he…?

‘Don’t worry, Little Mo,’ He Tian chuckled dryly. ‘I haven’t tried. Meilín can feel it.’

‘’Course she can,’ said Guan Shan, shifting on his feet. The mere mention of the sorceress’ name set him on edge, and he tried to be grateful for He Tian’s new openness instead of his cagey half-truths. Guan Shan cleared his throat and wanted to put his hands in his pockets, but it was slightly too warm for his cloak and he’d left it in his own room. ‘I got us passage. The others have their tickets for the fare. Ship leaves the day after tomorrow.’

He Tian nodded. ‘That’s good. I had a week’s wait for the ship from Gangling. Not that the voyage went particularly well.’

‘Least I got to you in time.’

He Tian’s lips curved. ‘There was that.’ 

They looked at each other. He Tian’s arms, folded across his chest, fell to his sides. His eyes had softened, turned regretful and pleading. 

‘Guan Shan, I…’

‘Don’t.’

‘I never meant to lie to you. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘That makes a change, does it?’ Guan Shan countered nastily. 

‘I suppose not,’ He Tian allowed carefully. ‘But it’s been one of the first times I hadn’t really thought about how it would hurt _you_. I regret that. I don’t know how to make it right. The damage is done.’ He took a step forward. ‘I can’t spend the rest of this journey like this with you.’

‘Like what?’

‘Waiting for you to leave. Or bite my head off. I know how you hold a grudge. I want to touch you but it’s as if you can barely stand to look at me.’ He said, ‘Look at me.’

Guan Shan hadn’t realised his eyes had dropped. He lifted them, felt his heart twist in an aching wrench when his gaze locked with He Tian’s. In an instant, he remembered He Tian’s body pressed close to his around a campfire, the steady pull of his hand on the ship about to wreck, his head to He Tian’s shoulder when he found him in the bar at Gangling. Each time, reaching for him, joining with him, finding solid ground. 

‘It’s not…’ He wet his lips and tried again. ‘It’s not that I don’t wanna look at you.’

‘Then what is it?’ 

‘It’s—if I do look at you I know I’m gonna let you get away with it when I should be angry with you. You fuckin’ _hurt_ me. You shouldn’t get to just— _get away with it._ ’

‘Then punish me,’ said He Tian, unembarrassed. ‘Punish me—but please don’t push me away. I couldn’t bear it.’

Guan Shan gritted his teeth. ‘You got a real way with words, you know?’

He Tian huffed. ‘Right now, they’re all I’ve got at my disposal.’

‘That’s a lie.’

It took He Tian a moment to catch on. The transformation was instant: his eyelids grew heavy, his eyes glittering and bright. The curve of his lips forced Guan Shan’s breath to quicken. 

‘I thought you weren’t interested,’ He Tian began.

Guan Shan looked away. ‘Told you I didn’t want to near other people. No one else around now.’

‘How convenient,’ He Tian murmured. He took another step forward, and they were barely a finger's breadth from one another. Guan Shan could feel the warmth emanating from his body, felt himself ache at the possibility of closeness. It had been a month since he’d felt his touch—more. 

He Tian put one hand to Guan Shan’s hip and the other to the side of his throat, He Tian’s lips rediscovering the familiar spot at the back of his ear. 

Guan Shan groaned, swearing under his breath. He couldn’t help himself.

He could smell He Tian’s scent: something sharp like lemon and pine and sweat. He Tian smiled into his skin, breathing in deeply. 

‘I should make you angry more often,’ he murmured. 

Guan Shan went to smack him on the shoulder but found his wrists suddenly caught behind his back in one of He Tian’s large hands, the grip tight and immovable.

‘Ah-ah,’ He Tian reprimanded. ‘I want to enjoy this.’

‘Thought you wanted me to punish you,’ Guan Shan replied tightly.

There was a pause.

After a moment, He Tian pulled back. His brows were lifted high. ‘Is that what you want?’ he asked, voice catching strangely. 

‘Think it’s only fair,’ Guan Shan answered, angling his throat backwards to evade the closeness of He Tian’s lips. He enjoyed how He Tian’s eyes flickered to the long line of his neck. Heat pooled in his stomach. He reminded himself that they had a day and two nights for this, and considered that it was about time.

‘Very well,’ said He Tian evenly. He stepped back. Guan Shan mourned the loss of touch almost instantly, but here, he had a choice. It was only right that he exercised it.

‘Meilín?’ he asked, trying to keep his breath even.

He Tian shook his head. ‘She’s not there. It’s you and me—no one else.’

Guan Shan nodded. ‘Alright, then,’ he said, then pointed. ‘Get on the bed.’


	7. Chapter 7

‘You like this.’

‘It’d be hard not to.’ He Tian shifted on the bed, pulling against the makeshift bounds as if to test their strength. Guan Shan knew he could break them if he really wanted to. Perhaps Meilín would offer a hand.

‘Some people don’t,’ said Guan Shan, fixing the final knot. ‘It’s givin’ somethin’ up.’

‘You already have everything. What’s left to give?’

‘Your control. Your— _manhood_. Your life.’

Their eyes met: He Tian, fixed to the bed. Guan Shan standing at the foot of it.

‘Give me a knife,’ said He Tian. ‘I’d give it to you. It’s yours.’

‘I don’t want it. Your life doesn’t mean anythin’ if I’ve got it.’

‘Then what do you want?’

‘You,’ Guan Shan said. He put a hand on He Tian’s ankle, felt him jump beneath the touch. ‘Y’know, I can’t remember the last time we fucked.’

He Tian replied with a lazy smile. ‘I can,’ he said. ‘The memory has been a close companion this whole journey.’

‘Must be gettin’ hazy around the edges.’

‘Make it clear,’ said He Tian. ‘Or untie me instead.’

Guan Shan shook his head. He walked around the edge of the bed, let his hand run along He Tian’s calf, to the jut of his knee, the widening breadth of a thigh, brushed with coarse dark hair. His leg trembled beneath Guan Shan’s touch. He Tian’s eyes followed the movement of Guan Shan’s hand, which moved without hesitation. When it stopped, pausing briefly at the juncture of He Tian’s groin and rested there, a muscle jumped in He Tian’s cheek.

Guan Shan enjoyed the sight of it.

 _Good,_ he thought. _Let him be tormented like he’s tormented me._

Weeks of unknown. Weeks of half-lies. He Tian had been falsely protecting him since he left Sengong. Guan Shan understood it; he understood, too, that He Tian needed to be vulnerable.

‘You look like you’re thinking wicked thoughts,’ He Tian murmured.

‘I am.’ Guan Shan’s eyes flicked up. ‘But I don’t wanna hurt you for it.’

‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’

Guan Shan’s hand tightened around He Tian’s thigh, fingernails threatening to bite into the skin. The reaction between He Tian’s legs swelled interestingly. If Guan Shan’s grip lasted much longer, he might bruise him.

He let go.

‘Guan Shan, I wouldn’t blame—’ He Tian sucked in a breath.

Guan Shan’s hand had gone to He Tian’s cock, and the grip was the same—tight enough to hurt.

He Tian swore.

‘Like this?’ Guan Shan asked.

He Tian swallowed. ‘Harder, if you like.’

Guan Shan shook his head, but didn’t let go. After a moment he put his knee on the side of the bed and pulled himself up until he was straddling He Tian’s waist. The movement was awkward—none of the cool sensuality he’d been hoping for. He didn’t know how to do this—he wasn’t He Tian.

He Tian had drawn his lower lip between his teeth and was watching Guan Shan with a mix of excitement and uncertainty, and the uncertainty spurred Guan Shan on.

There was excitement in that itself.

‘You’re gonna be beggin’ for me to stop,’ Guan Shan told him.

‘Yeah?’ He Tian asked, smirking. ‘If you want me to get to that point you’d better start, Little Mo.’

Guan Shan’s eyes narrowed. His hand tightened around He Tian’s cock; he pumped his hand up and down twice, like sanding wood.

He Tian’s head fell back.

‘Yeah,’ Guan Shan muttered. ‘That’s what I thought.’

///

‘The prodigal son’s returned! Come on, pay up. Told you Guan Shan hadn’t killed him.’

Guan Shan pulled a face at the other travellers as he and He Tian sat down to breakfast next morning. Jian Yi started to count his coins on one of the inn’s tables, sticky with ale and spilled berry wine.

‘You took bets?’ Guan Shan demanded.

‘I _won_ it,’ Jian Yi corrected.

Li Shuang muttered colourfully under her breath, and had no coin to hand over but the mountain of food on her plate, bigger than Jian Yi’s pale head.

‘Unbelievable,’ said Guan Shan.

He Tian snorted, reaching for a roll from the bread basket and tearing it to pieces, steam escaping from its centre.

‘What’s unbelievable,’ he said, ‘is that any of you thought Guan Shan would actually kill me.’

Zhengxi shrugged. ‘Not sure anyone else would get much of a chance. There can be no greater enemy than our greatest friends.’

‘Well put,’ said Jian Yi cheerily, but his eyes had gone tight at the corners.

Guan Shan watched them a moment before his gaze shifted to He Tian, who was favouring his right side and shifted every now and then in the wood seat. He was uncomfortable, as if he’d been riding a horse for a week and then had it riding him.

Guan Shan hid a smile in the cup of tea that Nijena had poured and passed across to him. He leaned close to He Tian.

‘You seem kinda agitated,’ Guan Shan murmured. ‘Somethin’ botherin’ you?’

He Tian tore into a second bread roll. ‘Not at all,’ he said, swiping his knife through a block of butter. ‘But I am famished.’

‘Rough night?’ Jian Yi leered.

‘Nothing I couldn’t handle.’

Nijena cleared her throat. It looked as if she’d eaten little more than a few pieces of fruit and now nursed a cup of hot tea between her palms. The day was balmy outside, a cool breeze cutting through the humidity and promising a hot day.

‘Are we leaving tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘I bought our fare last night,’ said Guan Shan. ‘We leave in the morning.’

‘And the return?’

Guan Shan scratched the back of his neck. ‘Somethin’ we have to figure out when we get there.’

‘Meaning?’ Zhengxi prompted.

‘Meanin’ it’s up to the officials at Longdì if they wanna let us in. Or let us out. Don’t you know this shit? I thought you’d been before.’

‘I’ve never left Moryo,’ Zhengxi replied with a dark look. ‘Not that any of this will matter. You have the letter from the South Kingdom, Jian Yi. We have official cause to be there.’

‘Right,’ said Jian Yi. ‘The letter.’

The two high elves exchanged a look, one questioning and one without an answer. Guan Shan looked at He Tian, who’d lifted a bemused brow.

‘Here is your coin, Mo Guan Shan,’ said Nijena, sliding a few silver pieces across the table. ‘For the tickets.’

Gingerly, Guan Shan took it.

‘Replenishing my brother’s coffers?’ He Tian joked.

‘You mean mine,’ said Guan Shan, finishing his tea. He reached for an orange from a bowl in the middle of the table and dug his thumbnail beneath the rind. ‘Think I’ve stuck my neck out enough to earn it.’ He paused and cast a look at Li Shuang, who had reclaimed her plate from Jian Yi and now ate in uncharacteristic silence. ‘Doesn’t feel right payin’ for your ticket, Li Shuang. Knowin’ you’ll end up in prison when you get off the ship in Longdì.’

Li Shuang looked up, surprised.

‘I am touched, little elf,’ she said. ‘But is okay.’ She leaned back and, sweeping a green-tinged finger between Guan Shan and He Tian, said smugly, ‘In Longdì, you two will be prisoner, too.’

‘Your confidence in me is charming, half-orc,’ He Tian said dryly.

She grinned. ‘You run from tyrant to land of dragons who do not care about little wood elf problems. You think your father does not warn dragons? Does not know you go to Longdì? He will have made story. It is trap.’

A strong heat prickled on the back of Guan Shan’s neck, but Li Shuang continued: ‘And if dragon not kill you then we will die on ship. And if water not kill you then Drow will.’

He Tian smiled thinly. ‘You forget, half-orc, that I am possessed by a sorceress.’

Li Shuang snorted, shoveling a piece of pita bread into her mouth, which had been smothered in hummus and oil and dripped over her fingers.

‘Who is dead for how long?’ she replied. ‘She will not have power you think she has.’

Guan Shan glanced at He Tian, who said nothing and bore only the same smile, the kind of thing he might wear before a lecturing tyrant father. A princely facade, unafraid until death. He turned his head.

‘Little Mo, are you still hungry?’

Guan Shan looked down at his unused plate. ‘Uh—’

‘Good,’ said He Tian, getting to his feet. He nodded to the others. ‘We’re going for a walk.’

//

Guan Shan squinted at the unimpressive skyline as they walked. It had clouded over since breakfast, the heat sticky and the sky bright and grey.

‘Was she right?’ Guan Shan asked.

He indulged in the last few segments of his orange and tugged at his shirt’s neckline as they wandered through the less chaotic streets of the ports, lined with boutique clothing stores and appealing cafés where they might dine for lunch. Bougainvillea spilled over flat rooftops and weaved its way through wrought iron fencing; the scent of hot sea air soaked the streets.

‘About?’ He Tian asked, walking slowly at his side and without direction. The gaze he cast into the shop fronts was clinically disinterested. ‘Death by drowning or death by dragonfire?’

‘Meilín. Your father.’

He Tian sighed. ‘It’s possible.’

‘Which part?’

‘Yes,’ said He Tian, and then after a sigh: ‘If my father has figured out where I’m headed, then it’s possible he’s sent word to the council. It’s possible, too, that I don’t know Meilín’s strength. I only know she’s strong—but not if she’s as strong as she claims. Not that I blame her. It’s certainly worked in her favour to coerce me into doing her bidding. I would’ve done the same.’

‘And what happens when we get there?’

‘Sweetheart, if I knew that…’ He Tian shakes his head ruefully. ‘I can’t tell you everything will be okay. I can’t lie to you like that—you wouldn’t believe me if I tried.’

Guan Shan planted his hands firmly in his pockets. ‘I wouldn’t’ve come if I thought all this was gonna be easy.’

They go quiet, and Guan Shan enjoys the sound of their boots clicking along the smooth cobblestones in the higher streets of the port. He’d thought this morning about taking a walk further up into the high terrain of the island, crowded with dense rainforest and panoramic views from the summit. But he was happy with this, the pair of them strolling around a foreign town as if they might be tourists, new lovers mingling with locals. Newlyweds, even.

Guan Shan pinched himself. That indulgence was useless; yesterday, they had a handful of Drow on their tail set to kill. Tomorrow might be the same. It would be unfair to the both of them to pretend that today would be anything less than a prelude to more chaos.

He Tian put a hand out.

‘You’re thinking of the worst,’ he said.

They came to a stop, pausing before an arched alleyway where tall houses looked down onto the cobbled streets, balconies draped with flower baskets and bedsheets left to dry in the wind. Guan Shan wondered what it would be like to live there, a short walk from the sea, salt in the air.

He thought of the North Kingdom’s forests and rivers, its damp, mossy air. He kicked the toe of his boot into the ground.

‘Can you blame me?’ Guan Shan asked, popping the final orange segment in his mouth. ‘After everythin’ that’s happened so far? There’s a lot hangin’ on your shoulders. And I kinda wanna go home alive.’

He Tian reached out and curled a finger through a belt loop in Guan Shan’s trousers. He tugged slightly—not enough to pull Guan Shan forward, but Guan Shan stepped close anyway.

‘That’s all I want,’ said He Tian. ‘That’s all I’ve wanted. You and me—back home.’

Guan Shan lifted his eyes heavenward and watched a gull as it was caught in the wind, the wide span of its wings angling sideways. He had the last of the orange peel scrunched into a ball in his hand.

‘Does the offer still stand?’ he asked, feeling suddenly nervous. ‘Y’know. The one you made in the workshop. The day you left you said you were gonna announce our union—’

‘I know what offer. You were _embarrassed_ about it—’

‘Can you shut up about that—’

‘Yes, it still stands. Honestly, Ah-Shan. Of course it stands.’ He Tian’s eyes searched Guan Shan’s, the same dark pair Guan Shan had been looking into for almost a century. ‘I’m not going to be married off to some Drow royalty that easily.’

Guan Shan snorted. He pulled an arm through He Tian’s and tugged him along. ‘C’mon,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s find somewhere for lunch.’

He Tian considered him askance, grinning. ‘A date, Little Mo? How romantic.’

‘Already bedded you,’ Guan Shan snipped, scratching his nose. ‘Least you could do is feed me for the trouble.’

He Tian’s laugh was loud, his grin wide, and Guan Shan hid his own all the way down the street.

//

They boarded the ship a few hours after sunrise the next morning.

It wasn’t a narrow schooner like the type that had been swallowed by the kraken between Axle and Gangling; this was a tall, sturdier thing with several wide decks, and made for slow and safe passage, stocky like a cargo ship.

There were a handful of other passengers on board, dignitaries and officials on business, a few curious, wealthy tourists on short-stay visas, granted months in advance by the embassy at Longdì.

Guan Shan’s heart was lodged firmly in his throat, like he’d swallowed a stone. He recalled the last time he’d been on the ship, the jagged wood that had lanced itself through He Tian’s skin. He’d healed over quickly—faster than he should.

Two nights ago He Tian bore only the reddish scar of a wound freshly healed, still tender when Guan Shan had pressed it. He’d removed the stitches this morning with a pair of tweezers, and Guan Shan had watched the beads of hot water drift over his stomach and towards his abdomen while he cleaned it with a sodden cloth.

Guan Shan shook his head. He Tian’s hand was at his back now, guiding him while one of the vessel’s foremen showed them the way to a large common area in the middle of the ship, furnished pleasingly with deep sofas and low wooden tables that had been anchored to the floorboards. A wooden cart stood in the corner of the room, laden with sweetmeats and hot drinks. Jian Yi already milled around the biscuit tray like a fly.

Below deck there were guest quarters in which they could freshen up or rest; Guan Shan didn’t want to go anywhere he couldn’t look through a port window and see the grey skyline that had started to blur with mist-like drizzle.

‘We should be there by sundown,’ He Tian murmured, steering him towards a vacant sofa.

Guan Shan had slept poorly and missed breakfast; he sank into the cushions with a stifled sigh.

‘I just wanna get there.’

‘Soon,’ said He Tian, settling down beside him.

Like this, their shoulders were pressed together and Guan Shan’s whole left side was warmed. He Tian’s eyes closed and he sank low in the cushions, a prince at rest. For a moment Guan Shan was almost convinced He Tian was asleep, but then he shifted, holding out a hand, and protested not at all when Guan Shan threaded his fingers through and squeezed it tight.

///

‘Here, drink this.’

Li Shuang looked down at the cup of hot liquid, at the soft brown hand that held it. She smirked at the Aasimar.

‘I walk on ship, how you say, _of my own free will._ You do not have to drug me.’

Nijena’s brow furrowed slightly, a disruption of her pretty face.

 _In another world,_ Li Shuang thought, _I would’ve done many things for that face._

Nijena held the cup out more firmly. ‘Drink,’ she said. ‘It is only tea. It will settle your stomach.’

Li Shuang quirked a brow. ‘I have stomach ache? I did not know.’

After another moment, Li Shuang took the cup. Warmth seeped into her palms; her gaze slid out through the porthole against which she had rested a hip, eyes set on the grey sea that had been a glistening blue only yesterday. What a sight she must have looked to someone watching—so morose. Unfortunately scholarly. Her lips twitched as she peered across the large room where the North Kingdom prince now dozed beside his beloved. Even warriors needed to rest sometimes.

Nijena drank her own tea silently, her grey eyes flitting observantly, watchful.

‘You do not have to stand here,’ Li Shuang told her. She peered down over the window. They were some thirty feet from the water on this deck. The hadn’t left port yet. Li Shuang would survive the jump into the dirtied waters of the port, possibly unscathed, but the Aasimar would have her before she could swim to shore.

Li Shuang considered her odds: even if she made it to port, she would be stuck on an island, and her size prevented her from moving through a foreign town unnoticed. She could live a few weeks in the hilly rainforest, but stowing herself away on a ship would be near impossible. She would have to kill its crew and steer the thing itself all the way to Hàndì. Their bodies would be sufficient food for the journey; lack of sleep would be her biggest enemy.

‘You are thinking of escaping,’ said Nijena quietly. ‘I would not try it.’

Li Shuang snorted, shifted her stance. ‘I am not stupid like _paras._ ’

‘You pirated merchant ships off Axle’s coastline.’ Nijena sipped her tea. ‘Stupid?’

‘ _Ach._ You are like priest to god of law. No fun. You never break law? Do thing you should not do?’

‘I have no wish to end up in chains.’

Li Shuang considered her. ‘You do not have to break law to be in chains, little angel.’

Nijena’s gaze was cool. ‘Are you threatening me?’

Li Shuang snorted again. She finished the rest of her tea, still a little hot.

 _She doesn’t understand,_ she thought. _There are those who follow the law, and then there are those that make it. The gods forbid that Nijena ever faces the latter. She’ll hate herself for following them._

For a moment, Li Shuang eyed the feathers woven into the strands of Nijena’s hair and thought, not for the first time, how soft they might feel were she to run them between her fingertips.

She thought the same of Nijena’s skin, warm and brown beneath the scars and calluses of Li Shuang’s hands. She’d thought it even while shackled in a cage for the four-week journey to Gangling, watching the Aasimar through the rusted metal bars: the fluid precision of her movements; her soft, unsmiling mouth.

 _Lusting after my captor?_ thought Li Shuang. _There is my stupidity._

Nijena was still looking at her, waiting for an answer. Li Shuang sighed.

‘No,’ she said, softer than intended. ‘I cannot threaten you.’

 _‘Even if you wanted to?’_ Nijena asked.

Li Shuang blinked. Nijena’s Orcish was without flaw; she managed its craggy syllables and consonants with skill, making the strong language of Li Shuang’s people sound softer than it should. Li Shuang shouldn’t have been surprised.

‘Yes,’ Li Shuang replied in her mother tongue. ‘Even if I wanted to.’

Beneath her, she felt a juddering wrench, then heard the clacking sound of an anchor being pulled up on its chain. The other passengers looked around them, moving to claim somewhere to sit for the day’s south-eastward journey. They were setting sail.

‘Are you afraid?’ Nijena asked, speaking still in Orcish, as if some boundary had now been trespassed. ‘I do not know how the dragons will sentence you in Longdì.’

‘Yes, you do. You know exactly how they’ll sentence me—just as you know whether or not I’m afraid.’

Nijena looked at her feet. ‘Which is?’

Li Shuang gave her an easy grin and handed her the empty cup.

‘Scared shitless.’

///

They met her that night in a tavern near the bottom of town, a dark, hall-like room sunk slightly into the ground, where orange streetlight seeped through the windows near the ceiling. The floor was sticky with spilled beer and sawdust, and the tables were marked with knife chippings and spilled stains from fruit wine. No one questioned the large pair in hooded cloaks, shuffled against a booth in the corner of the tavern. No one questioned the third that joined them.

They bought no drinks, spared not a glance at the chalkboard behind the bar with the evening’s specials. A fire crackled in the centre of the room, enclosed by a low, circular brick wall like a well. Smoke sat around the tables, tickling the back of the patrons throats.

He Cheng put coin on the end of the table for the innkeep, requested three tankards and nothing more, and only turned to the Drow princess when he had a tankard to settle down in front of her. Foam spilled over the rim. The woman put her hand around the sticky glass.

He Cheng watched her take a sip in silence, the rim of the tankard falling beneath the shadow of her hood. She leaned back against the chair and settled it back down, wiping the over-spilled ale on her hand into her cloak.

‘It isn’t poisoned,’ said He Cheng.

‘I’d hoped not,’ she replied. ‘That would be inconvenient.’

He Cheng pressed his mouth into a firm line. He found the lack of propriety jarring—no greeting, no proper gesture that indicated any kind of mutual respect. _Stomach it,_ he told himself. If the worst he bore this evening was an absent title of address, he should thank the stars.

‘Did you not think to check before?’ he asked her. ‘That it wasn’t poisoned?’

‘I did check,’ she replied simply, her mouth moving behind the hood. ‘I have magic. I know you don’t.’

Qiu shifted at He Cheng’s side, and He Cheng placed a hand on his thigh beneath the table, holding firm. The stakes were too high. Every word counted. He wasn’t playing this game to imbalance the enemy. He didn’t even know if he could consider her an enemy at all.

‘That’s a bold statement to make without even letting someone see your eyes.’

The hood tilted. ‘What good would that do?’

‘I need no magic to sniff out a liar.’

There was a pause. Qiu took a slow sip of his ale. Then, after a moment, the Drow shifted back her hood.

He Cheng and Qiu leaned back in union. Her appearance shouldn’t have struck them as much as it did. Her skin was dark and purplish, her face framed by a short crop of ice-white hair. She had a thin nose and a full mouth, obsidian eyes that seemed to swallow her face. He Cheng couldn’t make out her pupils. She was not dissimilar to any other Drow He Cheng had seen before, and yet unlike any other.

‘My brother would have done well to marry you,’ said He Cheng.

She smiled thinly. ‘It’s a shame he’s dead. My condolences.’

‘You would not have asked to meet if you believed that.’

‘No, I wouldn’t. I wanted to see what you would say.’

‘I don’t play games, Princess.’

‘Yes, you do. You are playing a very dangerous one right now. Raising a coup against your father?’

He Cheng stilled.

Beside him, Qiu sucked in a low breath.

She knew.

‘You’ve been spying,’ said Qiu.

‘Your shortfall is that you haven’t been doing the same,’ she replied, looking at He Cheng with those strange, huge eyes. ‘You knew your father was speaking with mine and you didn’t think to get the truth of what was happening from the Drow? You wood elves have so many ideas in your head about us, but I can tell you we don’t hide the truth from our own kin.’

He Cheng drank his ale. He didn’t believe her. He knew his bias was entrenched: the Drow were calculative, machiavellian creatures born in darkness. He would accept no commentary on his own race from the tongue of Drow royalty.

He only said: ‘Wood elves can’t go to Heian Dong.’

The Princess lifted a brow. ‘Have you _tried?_

‘I risk death in my own kingdom. I don’t need to attempt it elsewhere.’

Her mouth pressed together, a small indent forming in her cheek. She was smirking. Startlingly, she reminded him of He Tian. He Cheng frowned at her.

‘Tell me what you know,’ he said.

She blinked at him, then lifted the tankard to her mouth once more. Qiu and He Cheng watched in silence as she bared her throat to swallow, and emptied the rest of the tankard in four large gulps.

The display lacked finesse; it was not a show of strength. When she wiped her mouth, and put the empty tankard on the table, her hand shook.

She was afraid.

‘Another,’ she said, quietly.

Qiu motioned a serving boy, who replenished each of their tankards, and the princess fell back against her chair with a muted sigh.

‘My father had planned to use your brother and I as a sacrifice to break the boundaries. A newlywed, unconsummated couple of royal blood. That is the requirement according to the texts.’

No one said a word.

He Cheng touched his throat, then let his hand drop. The serving boy brought more ale again, then three short glasses of something stronger. It tasted like varnish and only briefly stripped away the nausea.

He Cheng wanted to drink until he felt sick. Anything to replace the new, heavy weight in his stomach.

‘A sacrifice,’ he said eventually. ‘I have no reason to believe you.’

‘My life is quite literally at stake here, wood elf. If it were some other girl destined for the pyre with your brother, I wouldn’t care. But as it is…’

‘What text?’ asked Qiu. ‘Where’s your proof?’

‘It was stolen from the dragons’ lands,’ she said. She pulled something from her robes, a stained scrap of paper, and tossed it across the table. Qiu reached for it first, the paper brittle and old.

‘It’s just a copy,’ she said. ‘My father sleeps with the real thing under his pillow. He bought it from the orcs in exchange for a few of our mages to fight the war. They had more use for weapons than old books.’

Something about her words made He Cheng pause.

‘Your father knows that you know,’ he said, while Qiu’s eyes roamed the paper beside him, words murmured in hushed reverence.

‘He told me,’ she said. ‘He said it would be my honour.’

He Cheng stared at her. ‘I thought you said your kin didn’t lie.’

‘We don’t. Which is why it is a travesty to my people that I’m here now after saying it would be my honour, too.’

‘You don’t want to die,’ said Qiu, Hàndìng the paper to He Cheng. ‘There’s no travesty in that. If they succeed in bringing down the boundaries, many more will die, too.’

The princess didn’t reply. He Cheng’s eyes roamed the paper. The language was in old Elvish, half-legible. He understood it on a basic measure. The princess had summed it up decently: sacrifice, royal blood, a wed couple. Where was the serving boy? He needed another glass of off-white spirit. His stomach was now a tight, discomfiting knot.

What was his father doing? What had he already done?

‘If my brother comes back, he’s dead.’

‘I’m afraid that your brother will end up dead wherever he goes,’ said the princess.

He Cheng looked down at the paper in his hands. He felt the sudden urge to tear it into pieces—to throw it into the fire burning away merrily in the middle of the tavern. No one would be any of the wiser; no one would know what had been written and what sank away into the embers. But it could burn all it wished: it wouldn’t erase the spell from being.

How many people would he have to kill to erase it from everyone that knew it by heart?

He Cheng closed his eyes.

That was his father’s thinking, not his. That thirst for blood was what placed them here already.

‘If my brother dies before he returns to Moryo, there will be no sacrifice.’

‘Of course there will.’

He Cheng opened his eyes.

She was looking at him, incredulous.

‘Have you forgotten that you are the North Kingdom’s prince, too?’

///

They were two hours from port. The drizzle off the coast of Axle had turned into a strange, thick fog, and the ship moved through it silently, laying a heavy dampness on Guan Shan’s skin. He could barely see a few metres before him. From the belly of the ship, a long, mournful sound emitted, a fog horn raised in warning.

When he concentrated, Guan Shan found himself breathing with it, his lungs falling into the easy motion. Up here, the ship was deserted of passengers. There was only the helmswoman and a handful other crew members wandering about the deck.

He’d been standing there half an hour when He Tian found him, leaning against one of the railings. Guan Shan liked the strange coolness of the passing air on his face and glanced sideways as He Tian approached.

‘The air is odd up here,’ He Tian said, coming to join him. ‘Sulphuric.’

‘It must be the mountains on Longdì,’ Guan Shan said. ‘I heard smoke comes out of them every day. We’d probably see them if this fog wasn’t so fuckin’ thick.’

He Tian angled his head in acknowledgement. ‘I have the feeling we’d never see them. Perhaps that’s what the fog is for: if you didn’t know exactly where you were going, you’d never find the island at all.’

‘Or you’d wreck your ship.’

He Tian’s white teeth flashed in the lamplit darkness. ‘A deceptively simple defense, I think.’

‘Maybe not deceptive at all,’ Guan Shan murmured. ‘Maybe it’s just weak.’

‘Are we speaking in riddles?’

‘I’m startin’ to get the impression the dragons have a bigger ego than we realise. They think they’re indestructible so they don’t bother defendin’ anythin’ properly. Longdì… The mountains outside of Sengong…’

He Tian considered this for a moment. ‘I don’t think they think they’re indestructible. I think they _are_. If they didn’t put up any precaution at all they’d grow tired with the petty attempts at trespass.’

‘What if your father succeeds? In gettin’ past the boundaries in Sengong. What then?’

‘Then the dragons will kill him.’

‘How?’ Guan Shan asked. ‘They can’t kill him if he’s got their power. It’s untapped magic in the hands of someone who’s never had it for nearly a millennium.’

He Tian had gone quiet, and Guan Shan glanced to see He Tian watching him.

‘You’ve been thinking about this for a while,’ He Tian murmured.

‘Even if we never get back to Sengong… My ma—’

‘I know. But if He Cheng made a promise to protect her, you can know that she’ll be safe.’

‘And if He Cheng’s dead? If Qiu’s dead? We don’t know where your father could stop. We know what the Drow are capable of. The second those boundaries are broken they could take everythin’ and wipe Sengong off the map.’

‘You’re worrying about this too much.’

_‘Someone’s fuckin’ got to, He Tian.’_

They stared at each other.

Guan Shan was breathing hard, and his eyes had started to sting. He Tian was right: he had been thinking about this for a while. But the reality of it had never struck him until now. It was easy to detach himself so far away; it was easy to pretend that the North Kingdom capital was safe and still standing, just as he left it, for safekeeping.

And indeed he had left it, with He Cheng and Qiu as its guards, as if the city were an easily tended-to pet or a broken bone soon to be healed. It felt like negligence now. As they moved closer to Longdì, the land some indeterminate distance before them, Guan Shan felt regret.

‘I shouldn’t have left her,’ he muttered.

He Tian’s reply came evenly: ‘If you hadn’t, I might never have had the news from my brother. I might never have gone to Longdì.’

Guan Shan looked down at his feet. ‘D’you think I’m a coward?’

‘Never,’ He Tian said immediately. He reached across, touched the underside of Guan Shan’s chin with his fingertips. Their eyes met evenly. ‘But I think you would have died there on your own with her. And I think I would’ve died too. And the former is something that I can’t quite bear to think about.’

Guan Shan swallowed this. They stayed standing together until the drizzle had turned their skin damp and dewy, and then returned back inside for the last hour of their journey the dragon lands.

///

‘My father would never.’

‘Sacrifice you? Believe me, we’re less indispensable to our fathers than we think.’

‘He’ll have no lineage if both his sons are dead.’

‘What use is lineage when there is power?’

He Cheng almost stumbled, but he kept walking. They had left the tavern a short while ago. The fire was growing too hot and He Cheng had felt sweat running down the side of his temple. It was summer, a clammy night, and wagons were passing them, laden with early harvests of wheat from the fields on the outskirts of the city. It was nearly dawn.

Qiu walked a little ahead of them, a guard studiously on parole. No one stopped them; no one looked at them. A glint of Qiu’s badge beneath a burning, burnished lamp and they were undisturbed.

‘My father cannot know this,’ he said. He’d wanted it to be a statement, but the words rose traitorously into a question. His own uncertainty betrayed him.

For a moment the princess didn’t reply. ‘No,’ she said quietly. He Cheng swallowed in quiet relief. ‘He doesn’t. But if he did?’

He Cheng had no answer for her. He couldn’t vouch for his father’s good character; He Jun had already sold his second heir to the Drow for power. He Cheng couldn’t be sure his father wouldn’t offer He Tian’s life, too. Since their mother’s death, the emperor’s offspring had become tedious playthings no longer abiding by the rules.

‘As I thought,’ said the princess.

‘You know your father must die,’ said He Cheng. ‘Given everything—he will see us all dead before he gets what he wants. To perform such dark magic… Nothing is sacred to him.’

‘Debatable. He thinks I’m a worthy sacrifice. It’s his highest praise yet.’ Her voice took on a strange tone. ‘A most appropriate use for a daughter who was not a son.’

‘Count yourself lucky. Our father has no care for his sons, either.’

They shared a grim smile. It was abysmal, He Cheng thought. He watched Qiu walk ahead of him. He thought of it infrequently, but now imagined a child of their own wandering these streets. The life they could lead under his rule and not his father’s.

He Cheng grimaced at the thought of ruling the North Kingdom. Perhaps the problem lay not with his father, but with the ruling autocracy itself.

He Tian would’ve laughed at him for those thoughts, offered him a singular finger, and he would be right.

_You are giving our dear father leniency where the bastard deserves none._

At the strange ghost of his brother’s words, He Cheng corrected himself. No, he wasn’t pardoning his father. He was committing to bringing about his own ruin. Without the autocracy, there would have to be a government, and He Cheng couldn’t be sure the people would allow him in it. To end his father and all that came with the last millennium of rule, He Cheng would present the possibility of ending himself, too.

Beside him, the princess spoke quietly. ‘I know he has to die.’

He glanced at her. ‘And are you prepared to end him?’

‘Are you?’

He Cheng bit his tongue until he felt blood. Qiu was the only other one who understood what needed to be done—the only person with whom he had spoken so openly. Openly in narrow hallways and the forests behind the garrison and beneath the hallowed sheets of their bed. He suspected few of his supporters understood what needed to happen. Even before tonight, He Cheng had resigned himself to the inevitable fact of how this needed to end.

Admitting the truth to a stranger—the _enemy_ —made him look ahead through the dusky, half-lit streets with renewed uncertainty. But there was relief, too.

An ally.

He had found another ally, and one who knew his position with excruciating understanding.

‘Ready to end him?’ he asked, finding it easy to say the words aloud. ‘I don’t have a choice.’

///

A bell rang somewhere, low and steady.

He Tian sat up groggily, having dozed off on Guan Shan’s shoulder. They’d retreated from the foggy decks for the last hour of the journey and settled themselves on chairs in the main passenger hall. Guan Shan grumbled as they righted themselves and wiped their eyes, and He Tian stood and fixed his sword to his hip.

A crew member appeared at the entrance to the hall.

‘We’ll be anchored in ten minutes,’ he called out in Common. ‘A steward will take any weapons on the docks—you’ll get them back when your entry has been processed.’

‘No weapons?’ Guan Shan asked quietly.

‘Precautions,’ He Tian said, shrugging and ignoring the way his stomach swooped at the thought of Hàndìng his sword over to some unknown steward, even if for a few moments.

‘What’s the point?’ said Guan Shan. ‘Any mage could do more damage with a fuckin’ spell than you could with that sword.’

‘Thank you for your endless flattery of my skills, sweetheart.’

Guan Shan cast him a sharp glance as they moved towards the front of the hall, eager to disembark.

‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’

He Tian shrugged, unoffended. ‘Magic or sword—both are useless against the dragons. They can put up barriers against magic; they might see a thrown knife too late. The wound would just be an inconvenience, unless you’ve added some sort of magework I don’t know about to the metal.’ When Guan Shan shook his head, He Tian said again, ‘ _Precautions.’_

‘I guess,’ Guan Shan grumbled. He pressed a hand to his hip, where He Tian knew a short knife was hidden beneath cloth.

_There is no use in him trying to hide. The dragons will know if he is armed._

He Tian straightened slightly. _You’ve been quiet,_ he told Meilín.

 _It is strange to relive this journey,_ she replied. _It brings back many memories._

 _Good ones?_ He Tian asked, knowing they would have been her only companion for millenia.

 _Some,_ she said, and opened a door.

///

_Gui Ren was nauseated half the trip, and vomiting for the rest of it. His door stayed closed, a chambermaid picking up the bucket from the narrow hallway below deck thrice a day. The smell of bile soaked the air, and Meilín stayed away._

_‘Even I could make him a tonic,’ Meixiu remarked, taking the seat across from Meilín. The low table was set before a long glass wall at the front of the ship, giving a clear view of the seas. It was blue today and the skies were bright._

_Meixiu wore a white dress._

_‘If he’s so sick,’ she said again, ‘I know a tonic that could help—’_

_Meilín sighed. ‘He’s fine.’_

_‘He’s been sick for days now. Surely you must be powerful enough to ease him_ somehow.’

_Meilín snorted softly. ‘It isn’t a question of power, Meixiu.’_

_‘No?’_

_‘No. It’s all about conviction.’_

_Meixiu’s eyebrows rose. She leaned back slightly in her seat._

_‘You really care nothing for him,’ she said._

_‘I work for him,’ replied Meilín._

_‘You’ve been at the ambassador’s side for centuries.’_

_Meilín was snappish. ‘Make your point.’_

_Meixiu looked away. Then her gaze sharpened and moved back. ‘Are you_ making _him unwell?’_

_Meilín drank her tea. ‘We are in a confined space for two weeks—on a ship, in a carriage. The journey is an easier one if I do not have to entertain him. I would expect you to be grateful.’_

_Meixiu’s lips parted slightly. Her dress was distracting, as was the rouge brushed across her cheeks. She kept her hair long down her back, and tied it up only when going above deck where a sharp wind whipped the darks strands about her face._

_‘I won’t thank you,’ she told Meilín. ‘I have no objection to fucking him.’_

_Meilín’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you wish to shock me or repulse me?’_

_‘Does it make you jealous that I lie with him?’ Meixiu replied obtusely._

_‘Jealous,’ Meilín said flatly._

_Meixiu shrugged, a delicate motion. ‘It’s understandable. He has no desire for your flesh, only your magic. It must make you feel used.’_

_Meilín put her hands in her lap before she did something stupid, like wrap them around the pretty courtesan’s throat. The assumptions were wildish and insidious; this was not a conversation to be held over tea._

_‘Repulsive,’ said Meilín eventually, answering her own question. ‘It does not shock me—but it does repulse me. If he came to me to use anything but my magic he would no longer have his limbs.’ She sipped her tea. ‘That is why you’re here. To provide what I will not. Make no mistake: there have been many others like you. You are not the first. But I am—and my magic is worth more to him than what you have between your legs.’_

_Meixiu surprised Meilín: she said nothing. The comment had made others cry before, young women who became fearful of Meilín and neurotic, ridiculous to the point that Gui Ren would have to dismiss them until the trio fell back to two._

_‘You mean to frighten me,’ said Meixiu. ‘You don’t. It takes more than words.’_

_‘I could fill your lungs with blood until you choked on it.’_

_Meixiu smiled. ‘More words.’_

_Meilín eyes narrowed._

Do it, _she thought._ Show her. Make her see why Gui Ren keeps me around.

_The tables around them were empty: it was early yet, and the few passengers on board were still asleep. Meilín had awoken when the skies were still dark; she had been sitting to watch the dawn._

_‘Disappointing,’ Meixiu murmured._

_‘I have no need for party tricks,’ said Meilín, getting to her feet. ‘They would be wasted on you.’_

_She pushed her chair beneath the table, then began to walk towards the corridor, which would lead towards the cabins. She hadn’t decided yet whether to retreat the half-darkness of her cabin or stand on the main deck and let the wind rip itself around the fragile line of her torso, her limbs—_

_‘Wait.’_

_Meilín stopped, but didn’t turn._

_‘We should make amends.’_

_Meilín’s mouth tightened. ‘We,’ she said, carefully._

_‘I don’t bear you any ill will,’ said the courtesan. ‘I would like for this—arrangement—to be as convenient as possible. For all three of us.’_

_‘I don’t care for your convenience.’_

_‘You care for yours—you certainly don’t care for his.’_

That isn’t a lie, _Meilín thought. There would be no bad blood between them and Gui Ren if there didn’t have to be—and apparently there didn’t._

 _‘What do you suggest?’ Meilín asked flatly. ‘For making_ amends. _’_

_When there was silence, Meilín turned. Meixiu had a curious little smile on her face. It spoke volumes. Meilín considered the tight curve of her mouth, her eyes like those of an animal willing to fight its way out to survive. She was like Meilín._

_A wash of heat spiked across Meilín’s sternum; she pressed a hand to her neck._

_‘Your rooms,’ Meixiu said. ‘Are they empty?’_

_Slowly, Meilín nodded. ‘I do not take others to my bed like Gui Ren.’_

_‘Then let me take you.’_

///

He Tian staggered slightly as he moved down the thin corridor of the ship. Guan Shan steadied him with a hand, giving him a confused look, and He Tian shook his head.

‘Meilín,’ he said. ‘She was showing me something.’

Guan Shan pulled a face. ‘Anythin’ interestin’?’ he asked.

‘Depends on your view.’

Guan Shan rolled his eyes ‘C’mon,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s get off this fuckin’ ship.’

He Tian let himself be led by Guan Shan’s persistent touch, through the corridor and towards a narrow staircase leading to the deck for disembarkation. His thoughts ran quickly, nonsensical. He let his mind reach out.

 _You fucked the ambassador’s courtesan?_ he asked.

_I suppose, if we are being specific, she fucked me._

He Tian’s face twitched. _I don’t need specifics. Why did you show me that?_

He could picture Meilín shrugging. _You wanted to understand my silence._

He Tian scoffed, smothering the sound when Guan Shan gave him an irritated look and hastened them along. A fresh breeze trailed down the staircase as they reached the first steps, carrying with it strange, sharp scents of petrichor and sulphur.

 _You are sitting in my head thinking about being ridden by a courtesan,_ said He Tian. _This makes me feel very used._

_It was more than just sex._

He Tian paused. _You cared for her. In your own way._

_We made the journey a number of times between our lands and the dragons’. At sea—after a time—we were together always._

_Did Gui Ren know?_

There was a brief pang of silence.

 _Eventually,_ Meilín replied. _When we spent time together off the ship, it became apparent._

_What happened? When he found out, what did he do?_

He Tian pictured the ruins beyond the palace at Sengong. He saw the fleeting shadow of a woman behind his eyes, half-formed and featureless. In the back of his throat, he could taste something like ash, and a candle burnt down to the wick.

 _I think you know,_ said Meilín. _We were going to leave. Live on Axle, somewhere. A cottage on the coast with open windows. Sea breeze. Disgustingly romantic, is it not? She was capable of that. She made me feel capable of it. Like it was possible._

He Tian looked down at his feet as they moved up the steps and onto the deck. The air was neither hot nor cold, strangely thick. It made He Tian’s skin itch. He took Guan Shan’s hand as they approached the gangplank, clutching his sword in the other, each one a strange lifeline. Meilín’s words lay heavy with him like the air. _She made me feel capable of it._

As they crossed the plank and onto the jetty, He Tian could see the guards standing a little way from the port, dressed in livery, and a few other figures He Tian couldn’t make out. A stone path led towards them, bordered by braziers, at the end of which stood a mammoth set of wrought iron gates, firmly shut. The dragon’s lair lay further beyond, smothered by a fugue of thick fog. Mountains blocked out the skyline.

 _That’s why you wanted to come here,_ He Tian said, struggling to see the romanticism of the place. _Because you were here with her._

_That is part of it._

_The other part?_

_That would be—_

‘Oh, fuck.’

He Tian nearly collided with Guan Shan’s back.

In the weak light, he saw that Guan Shan had gone pale.

‘What is it?’ He Tian asked, squeezing his hand.

Behind him, Li Shuang swore gruffly. She was in chains again, and Nijena had a reluctant hand in the small of the half-orc’s back. The metal jangled as she stepped onto solid ground.

‘We are dead,’ she said.

 _‘What is it?’_ He Tian demanded.

Jian Yi and Zhengxi stepped off the boat together and came to stand at Guan Shan’s side. Jian Yi had a thin, pale arm extended, and at its end a pointed finger. The sides of his mouth had fallen down in a grimace.

‘Drow,’ he said. ‘With the guards.’

He Tian’s blood ran cold. He saw them now: pale-haired, dark-skinned. A pair standing with the guards, waiting. They were standing straight, ink-black eyes set straight forward. Looking at him.

He TIan glanced behind him, almost desperately, at the ship. It wasn’t going anywhere. It would never set sail in time, even propelled by Nijena’s and Jian Yi’s powers. He knew without asking that Meilín wouldn’t make a second portal—she was where she wanted to be.

They were stuck here. No, worse than that. Li Shuang was right.

Grimly, He Tian said, ‘We’re dead.’


End file.
